Stefon Harris & Blackout - Evolution (2004)

Established jazz artists like vibraphonist Stefon Harris hold it on faith that their fans--and maybe some critics, too--will follow them when they gravitate toward the commercial side of the tracks with pop-informed albums. Still, even taking into account the need to reach a broader audience at a time when instrumental jazz has fallen out of favor, Evolution seems like a step backward, not forward. As contemporary jazz--if not Contemporary Jazz--goes, this album is a cut above. Harris has a great ear for melody, a gift for intoxicating, offbeat arrangements, and a knack for sublimating influences ranging from funk to fusion. (He is abetted in the latter style by Marc Cary, who often sounds like Return to Forever-era Chick Corea on electric piano.) But even if some of the performances get under your skin with repeated listening--a cover of Sting's ballad "Until" casts a sneaky spell--too much of the album is bland and predictable. While it's nice to hear Harris return from the rarified heights of his Grand Unification Theory suite and play with a working band again, he's capable of more evolutionary sounds than these. ~ Lloyd Sachs