As of 2002,
Kenny Garrett
had spent a decade recording for
Warner Bros.
, with
Happy People
being his seventh release for the major label. That was a remarkable accomplishment in an era when, to succeed, it seemed that
jazz
musicians either had to adopt
pop
-oriented
contemporary jazz
as their style or, if they stayed in a
traditional
mode, be, uh, dead.
Garrett
remained very much alive, but
demonstrated the strategies that the alto saxophonist had developed to maintain his precarious status. Basically, he took a little from both of those successful approaches. As on his previous album,
Simply Said
, he employed
Marcus Miller
on a selective basis as an electric bassist, also promoting
Miller
to co-producer.
, who knew his way around
, helped turn the opening track,
"Song for DiFang,"
into the kind of number that potentially could be played on
smooth jazz
radio stations. And those stations probably also would feel at home with the title track, slotted second in the album's sequence, which featured vocals by
Jean Norris
. Indeed, if you stopped listening there, you'd classify
as a
album. But
turned gradually more
as the album went on, and he also supplied signposts to his illustrious (and dead) predecessors, humorously imitating former employer
Miles Davis
' harsh whisper of a voice at the start of
"Ain't Nothing but the Blues,"
dedicating
"Monk-ing Around"
to
Thelonious Monk
, and, in the closing track,
"Brother B. Harper,"
which nominally concerned saxophonist
Billy Harper
, actually sounding much more like
John Coltrane
. What kept
from being a compromised effort was
's always-impressive playing, but it was certainly a record that carefully touched a lot of bases. ~ William Ruhlmann