I can still remember when I first got in contact with the music of Jon Lucien back in 1991. I have never heard of his him before but discovered his Listen Love album on Mercury in my then favourite record store while studying in (Western-)Berlin, the city that later was to become German's capital. And I was hooked on his voice after the first listening. Then I didn't even mind that most of the music on Listen Love was generated by electronic instruments instead of real instruments. In the years to come I always bought every new album I could get hold of without listening and I have never regretted this decisions. Just like a good wine Jon gets better and better with time.
The launch of Jon's own Sugar Apple imprint in 2001 has made his music even better because he now has total creative and artistic control. A Time For Love is Jon's fourth release on Sugar Apple and yet another masterpiece.
Supported by musicians like Bill O'Connell (piano) and Kim Plainfield (drums), who also played on the Live In NYC set, Lincoln Goines (bass), Dan Carillo (electric guitar), and Myra Casales (congas, percussion) Jon plays acoustic guitar, timba and gonza on this album and of course sings like only he can with his unique deep, warm and velvet voice.
Musically Jon keeps his fans satisfied with the special blend of jazz, latin, and soul, a niche he has carved successfully for himself over the years.
Except for one cut the songs are all cover versions, but there's no need to worry that you get the umpteenth version of songs you're tired of hearing because you have heard them too often. In fact, all songs get the Jon Lucien treatment that turns this songs into something special and makes you wonder if the songs haven't longed to be recorded this way all the time.
Take Johnny Mandel's/Paul Francis Webster's tune A Time For Love, which was written for the film An American Dream in 1966 and sees its rebirth here as a slow bossa nova.
Hart's/Rogers's I Didn't Know What Time It Was is also done as bossa nova inspired version and this really adds a new dimension to this jazz standard.
The same can be said about I Believe In You, with lots of percussion this is a swinging tune that let's you hear how much fun Jon and his team must have had while recording this album.
Jon's greatest achievements on this album for me are his versions of Memory and People. Since I've never been fond of musicals or the music of Barbra Streisand it really is something that Jon convices me with his version of the Andrew Lloyd Weber song from Cats (Memory - done as stripped down version with acoustic guitar, piano and percussion with some excellent scatting by Jon) and the Streisand hit People. So if I ever buy an album of musical's greatest hits, it must be sung by Jon Lucien!
There are many other great songs on offer like the beautiful ballad Angelina, Lazy Afternoon, that's just aptly titled for that particular time of the day, Jon's own Mi Bolero, or his version of Roig's/Rodriguez' Quieremé Mucho, sung in Spanish and again Jon adopts this song to make it his own.
A Time For Love is an album that oozes sheer quality with a great singer and that contains song, you think you know by heart, but then discover that it's like you hear them for the first time. All in all highly recommendable and if you're not a fan of Jon Lucien so far, a great opportunity to discover his magic.