Detroit guitarist
Robert Lowe, a BET award winner, has gone out of his way to try to be a one-man band on this CD. He overdubs a variety of MIDI instruments, including keyboards and drums, to fortify his natural amplified guitar. You hear that guitar playing in a lot of unison lines with his other instruments in a mostly funk vein, with excursions into disco, pop, and even hip-hop rhythms. Not much jazz here. Alto saxophonists Thomas Hale and
Mark Kieme contribute to four tracks total, two apiece,
Gerard Gibbs adds keyboards to another six, and
Craig Lane to four.
Lowe wrote all 13 selections.
Lowe's strong suit is hip funk à la
Wes Montgomery-
George Benson-
Kevin Eubanks. "Blues on the Left Hand" is a perfect example, with
Gibbs, drummer
Ken Scott, and bassist Henry Mann digging into the groove rather than the groove commanding them. The lone swinger with drummer
Alex Brooks, pianist Teddy Harris Jr., and bassist
Ralphe Armstrong, "Lowe for Love" is good but disjointed, like the guitar is not in tune with the piano. All the rest of the songs are not distinctive in the least as far as composition. They vary in tempo from the slower "Ms. V" and "My New Lover" to the quick paced "Secret Agent." When
Lowe's voice and guitar work in tandem, as on "First Time," the gold standard goes up. But when hip-hop starts to creep into the title track, for example, the music sounds vapid and cliched. When
Kieme plays
David Sanborn-isms as on the title cut and "Searching," it's just plain derivative. It's not even that "smooth."
Lowe has a ton of pronounced talent, it's not hard to hear or recognize. Perhaps he'll get out of the production line mindset for his next recording and create some real music not influenced by '70s commercial trendiness.