Chris Walker - I Know Its Love (2005)

Think of Ornette Coleman, and one thinks of complex, cerebral, totally uncompromising free jazz. The saxman is a musical genius and a major innovator, but quite frankly, his work is way too abstract for most listeners -- and many people (including many jazz musicians) just plain don't understand what he does. But Chris Walker gets it; he spent two and a half years playing bass for Coleman. Walker has played with some other major jazz artists as well (including Gil Evans and Jimmy Heath), but as a vocalist/solo artist, he is known for more commercial recordings -- and commercial is definitely a word that describes I Know It's Love, which doesn't sound anything at all like a Coleman date. This 2005 release -- Walker's third solo effort and his first since 1993's Sincerely Yours -- isn't jazz at all. The album's focus is adult contemporary with R&B and country-pop overtones. Sometimes, Walker's romantic adult contemporary moves in an R&B-ish direction; other times, the country-pop influence is stronger. But either way, I Know It's Love is an adult contemporary disc first and foremost -- and if the self-produced, ballad-heavy CD has an ideal listener, it would be someone whose taste runs from Celine Dion, Lionel Richie, and Mariah Carey to Alan Jackson, Kenny Rogers, and Reba McEntire. While none of the material is mind-blowing -- pleasant and likable, but not mind-blowing -- Walker is obviously a skillful vocalist, and he is the sort of performer who has enough charisma to make material that is merely competent sound better than it actually is. I Know It's Love won't go down in history as a brilliant masterpiece, but it's a generally decent effort that will appeal to those who like their adult contemporary laced with both R&B and country-pop.