Thom Rotella - Can't Stop (1997)

Even as the smooth jazz format has grown over the past ten years, its annals are unfortunately littered with many artists whose promise fell victim to poor promotion, folding labels, and unending label limbo. While many (i.e. Chris Boardman, Gary Herbig, Bill Bergman) seemed to give up the fight to focus on more lucrative side endeavors, Thom Rotella -- who faced six years of this musical purgatory after three hit albums on DMP from 1987 to 1990, chose to struggle through the bleak period of turn-downs from seemingly every label in the genre. The title of his comeback album, Can't Stop reflects this brazen spirit in the face of all those rejection letters. But Rotella realized that the type of lightweight acoustic guitar music that launched his career was no longer en vogue and might not stand out among the competition in 1997; to get back in the game, he needed more substance, more grit. While Rotella fans from way back might think the crackling, electric Wes Montgomery-flavored licks on Can't Stop are a departure, the guitarist is simply reverting back to the style he intended to begin his solo career with all along. It's notable not only for Rotella's thicker production values and bolder sense of improvisation, but also for the pointed conversations he has with the horns of Rick Braun (trumpet and flugelhorn) and Gerald Albright (sax); none of his old albums had sax embellishment at all. On "Belly Up," he textures Land Richards' live drums with shuffling loops, blending his own fluid electric lines with a wah-wah guitar track, and weaving Albright's tenor through a veil of appearing, then disappearing bluesy keyboard lines by Jim Studer. On the feisty title track, Rotella starts with a groove foundation of Richards, percussionist Vail Johnson and percussionist Arno Lucas. Above this, Rotella's fluid lines gallop along, each verse culminating in a dual flourish of muted trumpet and guitar; Braun takes a solo, and then backs off so Rotella can wail away. ~ Jonathan Widran -- AllMusic.com