Various: The very best of smooth jazz

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * )

Whoever compiled this double CD sure has some funny ideas. Specifically about the words "best", "smooth" and most of all, "jazz".

But it's the bracketed descriptions of some tracks that show the reason for this collection's existence — the Temptations' My Girl is also the "Anchor butter ad", Dinah Washington's Mad About the Boy is "Levi ad", the Tambla Trio's Mas Que Nada is "Nike ad", and Sarah Vaughan's Make Yourself Comfortable is "Haagen Daz ad".

It does have 40 tracks featuring the work of alleged smooth-jazz artistes. And hey, it's not just any compilation that can manage to join the dots between Lionel Ritchie, Earth Wind and Fire, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Curtis Mayfield and Ella Fitzgerald, among the better-known names among this collection, which makes a virtue of its utter blandness.

If its cover art suggests sultry evenings back at the bachelor pad, the two hours of all that smoothness within are enough to have you running off to the supermarket — where the muzak's free and there's a bit less advertising.


Label: Universal