The veteran electric guitarist dashes off some spectacular solo runs on this collection, but he seems confused as to which genre he's playing in. His jumpy, shuffling cover of "Midnight at the Oasis" features a blazing Kirk Whalum sax solo and would be a natural for smooth jazz radio if other artists hadn't already redone the 1974 chestnut. On numbers like "You've Changed," however, he slows the pace down to Quaalude calm, aiming for intimacy with a small string section, but ending up with an insomnia cure. Then he's trying the bossa nova thing on the easy swaying "Garden of Dreams," and simply noodling and trying to impress us with his coolness on a brief improvised interlude "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." While he's all over the map throughout, he offers some musical oases that the casual listener can turn to while trying to figure out the rest -- inventive reworkings of the theme songs to '70s TV icons The Odd Couple and Hawaii Five-0. At eight minutes and pretty sluggish, "The Odd Couple" is kind of like watching Felix and Oscar listen to jazz while on Prozac. But "Five-O" features some of Taylor's snappiest soloing as well as a glimmering electric piano solo by Matt Rollings that puts the tune in its rightful retro place. The dichotomy of these two approaches characterizes the whole disc, which is highly listenable in spots, but too inconsistent on the whole.
© Jonathan Widran /TiVo
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