Baby Loves Jazz
Go Baby Go!

(Verve)

First Appeared in The Music Box, March 2007, Volume 14, #3

Written by John Metzger

Although individual limits certainly may vary, every parent reaches a point at which Old MacDonald, The Wheels on the Bus, and Happy and You Know It become utterly intolerable. While Go Baby Go!, the debut from the Verve-backed, Steven Bernstein-led Baby Loves Jazz outfit doesn’t eliminate the urge to pray for permanent hearing loss, it does at least succeed in tempering the desire. Granted, the vocals of Babi Floyd and Sharon Jones are, at times, so cheerfully exuberant that they veer dangerously close to becoming comically cloying, but the underlying music that is laid down by keyboard player John Medeski as well as the rhythm section of Ben Perowsky, Brad Jones, and Lonnie Plaxico holds enough merit to minimize the psychological damage that is caused by the overly familiar melodies themselves. Who knew, for example, that lurking inside Working on the Railroad was a swinging groove that merged Booker T. with Jimmy Smith? Elsewhere, Baby Loves Jazz transforms Paw Paw Patch into something steamy and soulful; You Are My Sunshine is delivered as an uplifting spiritual; and Banana Boat Song is immersed within the hushed translucence of Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way. Because of the selection of tunes that it features, Go Baby Go! isn’t likely to be most parents’ choice for entertaining their little ones. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to avoid these songs completely, and Baby Loves Jazz does an admirable job of finding ways of making them a little less insufferable. ½

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Ratings

1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

Copyright © 2007 The Music Box