The Other World

Chronique

In the early '80s, Inner City knew that there was money to be made from the growing quiet storm market -- and that explains the quiet storm direction of The Other World, which was recorded for Inner City in 1980 and reissued on CD by the Japanese P-Vine label in 2002. Although Judy Roberts is capable of singing straight-ahead jazz, most of The Other World isn't straight-ahead. Nonetheless, there are a few straight-ahead offerings, including Horace Silver's "Señor Blues" and Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" (which has been recorded so many times that producer Orrin Keepnews correctly described it as "the National Anthem of Jazz"). But for the most part, The Other World is laid-back R&B/pop with jazz overtones, and Roberts is obviously going after the quiet storm market with covers of Leon Russell's "Rainbow in Your Eyes," Gino Vannelli's "The River Must Flow," and Gato Barbieri's "Last Tango in Paris." Back in 1980, the target audience for this album was the people who were listening to the more laid-back, romantic work of Angela Bofill, Norman Connors, Roy Ayers, and Michael Henderson -- in other words, black adult contemporary music. That isn't to say that you had to be black to make a meaningful contribution to the quiet storm field; Bofill is Puerto Rican and Roberts is white. Nor is that to say that the quiet storm market was only about vocalists; in 1980, the same quiet storm stations that were playing Bofill were also playing R&B-influenced instrumentalists like Grover Washington, Jr., Lonnie Liston Smith, and David Sanborn. On The Other World, Roberts' vocals are noticeably thin; she doesn't have a fantastic range. But even though The Other World isn't remarkable, it is a pleasant quiet storm-oriented effort that occasionally detours into straight-ahead vocal jazz.
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