Deeper

Album review

Saxophonist, singer, and keyboard player Pete Belasco made a favorable impression with his debut album, Get It Together, released by Verve Forecast Records in 1997. Then, not much was heard from him until his work on the soundtrack for the 2002 film Secretary. Released in 2004, Deeper is thus a long-awaited second album, and Belasco has adopted a specific approach for it. Recognizing the role of the 1970s and early-'80s work of such soul music veterans as Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and Smokey Robinson in developing the sound of contemporary jazz, he has constructed the record as an homage to those performers. The grooves are relaxed but steady, the guitars employ the wah-wah pedal generously, the saxophone plays melodically in typical contemporary jazz style, and Belasco sings in a smooth falsetto strongly recalling his heroes. You keep expecting him to break into "Sexual Healing" (Gaye), "Freddie's Dead" (Mayfield), or "Being With You" (Robinson) at any minute, but he sticks to highly derivative originals instead. The style is quite deliberate; he even references quiet storm, the musical style named after a Robinson album, on "I'll Come to You," and he name-checks Gaye and Mayfield on the page of thank-yous in the CD booklet. Fans of the soul masters are liable to find the results a bit odd, but the style is close enough to contemporary jazz to earn radio play.

© William Ruhlmann /TiVo