Those who think of singer/saxman
Curtis Stigers as a pop/rock artist and associate him with "I Wonder Why" and "Peace, Love and Understanding" will be surprised to learn that
Baby Plays Around is very much a jazz album -- not jazzy pop, but straight-ahead acoustic jazz. Not that there is any reason why someone with pop/rock credentials can't embrace jazz if his heart is really in it; after all, jazz and rock are both part of the blues family. And even though some pretentious individuals in the jazz world love to state that jazz is "America's classical music," the fact is that jazz has more in common with rock and R&B than with
Beethoven or
Mozart.
Stigers thrived on that blues feeling as a pop/rock singer in the early '90s, and he thrives on it as a jazz singer. While
Stigers was often compared to
Van Morrison and
John Hiatt in the early '90s,
Baby Plays Around finds him drawing on influences that range from
Jon Hendricks and
Mark Murphy to
Chet Baker. In fact, one of the songs he embraces is "Let's Get Lost," which
Baker defined in the 1950s. Much of the time,
Stigers is in crooner mode, providing dusky, relaxed interpretations of "All the Things You Are," "You Are Too Beautiful," and "Everything Happens to Me," as well as
Randy Newman's "Marie."
Stigers doesn't inundate his listeners with technique, although his lightning-fast version of
Charlie Parker's "Billie's Bounce" underscores his ability to handle the demands of vocalese and hard bop. The singer (who plays sax on
Harry "Sweets" Edison's "Centerpiece" and
Parker's "Parker's Mood") doesn't stay away from overdone standards, but to his credit, he also picks some tunes that haven't been done to death. "Marie," for example, is a great song that many of the more myopic jazz singers wouldn't consider recording.
Baby Plays Around falls short of remarkable, but it's a pleasant, likable effort that has more pluses than minuses -- and is a reminder that people who are known for pop/rock needn't stay away from straight-ahead jazz if they really know their stuff. ~ Alex Henderson