Throughout her career, singer
Marilyn Scott has straddled a line between traditional jazz vocals and the poppier side of fusion.
Innocent of Nothing tilts slightly toward the latter, with catchy R&B-based tunes like "Icebox" and "Round and Round" alongside an oddly overwrought version of
Bob Dylan's "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" that brings
Scott Walker's melodramatics to mind. However,
Scott's jazz side reasserts itself on her challenging take on the
Thelonious Monk standard "Round Midnight," which
Scott approaches with the rhythmic fearlessness of
Jeanne Lee or indeed
Monk himself. Throughout, producer and bandleader
George Duke keeps the emphasis on
Scott's vocals, using the tropes of contemporary smooth jazz (lots of fretless bass and electric piano, that sort of thing) while never letting the album devolve into soulless background music prettiness, even on lightweight tunes like "A Flame." In terms of
Scott's vocal technique,
Innocent of Nothing is something of a step back from 2004's
Nightcap, a masterful collection of standards that features some of
Scott's finest singing, but as a whole, this album shows that interesting work can still be done in the oft-maligned field of jazz-pop. ~ Stewart Mason