Finally Joe Sample teams up with Verve Records and The Pecan Tree is his debut for this label.
I have to admit that I really haven't been into Joe Sample's music before although I liked his last album Song Lives On with Lalah Hathaway on vocals. On The Pecan Tree there are 4 songs that feature the voice of Lizz Wright (previously unknown to me) and Howard Hewett (of course well-known).
And what a fine voice Miss Wright has. No One But Myself To Blame and Fool's Gold are both sung very soulful without Lizz drifting into some vocal acrobatics. No One is more of the classic slow jazz ballad whereas Fool's Gold comes along as nice swinging midtempo song. And since the CD cover states that Lizz Wright is a Verve recording artists there soon will be more to hear from her, hopefully.
Ex-Shalamar Howard Hewett is featured on In A Heartbeat and on With These Hands. And again we get a more uplifting midtempo song (In A Heartbeat) and one ballad in the shape of With These Hands.
And within the context of these 4 vocal soul/jazz songs I must admit I also like the rest of the album. And despite other sayings I don't thing that Joe Sample plays piano music for elevators. There's still a quite hearable difference between his music and the smooth jazz genre. Ok, it's not as jazzy as say McCoy Tyner, but songs like Hot And Humid, X Marks The Spots, Spanish Moss or The Texas Two Step are fast and groovy and include some fine piano playing by Joe with a little help from amongst others Larry Aberman, Lenny Castro or Peter Wolf.
All in all an enjoyable album especially for the vocal tracks.