Last week, during the midst of my jazz music series, I started reflecting back on all of those great tunes I would always hear on the short-lived local smooth jazz station here in St. Louis on the 106.5 FM channel. That station existed more than a decade ago; now, the closest thing to a jazz station we currently have is a community radio station on 88.1 FM that only sometimes plays jazz. Well, I guess the 'sometimes' word could've been used to speak about 106.5 as well, remembering now that it featured songs that not only contained jazz—"Fallin'" by Alicia Keys, for instance—but also songs that one could classify as easy listening altogether (Michael McDonald's cover of "The Tracks Of My Tears" is a good example of that). One song that I remember very well from that smooth jazz station was Jeffrey Osborne's marvelous cover of the SPINNERS classic, "I'll Be Around". Although it's not exactly a jazz song in itself, thinking about it gave me the notion of listening to one of my favorite Jeffrey Osborne albums again because I've always loved Jeffrey's voice. That album would be his self-titled debut, and with it, I've crossed back over into the awesome 80's. The aforementioned "I'll Be Around", which he performed with the jazz ensemble called THE RIPPINGTONS in the mid-90's, doesn't appear here, of course, but there are lots of other hits here that I must marvel about. Since the subject for the past week or so has been jazz, I may as well skip to the chase and tell you that you'll hear the best jazz instrumentals on two exciting upbeat numbers, "Ready For Your Love" and "Ain't Nothin' Missin'". "Ready For Your Love", in fact, is my #1 favorite on this album because it always makes me feel so good inside (adding this one to my 'Feelgood Mix' before I forget as I write). "New Love", "Who You Talkin' To?" (the inclusion of the electronic voice effects works so well on this one) and "Eenie Meenie" (as in the popular children's rhyme, 'Eenie meenie miney mo, catch the tiger by the toe', although 'tiger' is replaced by the word 'lover' in Jeffrey's case) are favorites as well, though the first time I heard these was years after I'd heard most of Jeffrey's other popular hits from his later albums. One hit that everybody knows is the memorable radio staple "On The Wings Of Love"—one of those ballads that'll never go out of style and should never be taken off the air for any reason. While that one has been receiving so much attention, I feel there's two other ballads that should be given radio consideration: "You Were Made To Love" and especially "Congratulations". If Jeffrey Osborne is new to you, his self-titled effort is a great place to begin your music journeys with him; for me, that journey already started a long time ago:
1. New Love
2. Eeenie Meenie
3. I Really Don't Need No Light
4. On The Wings Of Love
5. Ready For Your Love
6. Who You Talkin' To?
7. You Were Made To Love
8. Ain't Nothin' Missin'
9. Baby
10. Congratulations
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