Fattburger - All Natural Ingredients (1996)

San Diego's Fattburger is one of smooth jazz's elder statesgroups, and could easily rest on their laid back laurels if they chose to. Instead, the powerful playing and eclectic tempos of All Natural Ingredients combine to create one of their most hard hitting works to date. A good deal of the new energy comes from snappy electric guitarist Evan Marks and Hollis Gentry, an original member who guests here with cranked up, jazzed out solos on flute and sax. While laid back softies like "Till Then" have the trademark feel, it's the firepower of hypnotic urban jams like "Coronado" and "100% Fatt" which kicks these ingredients into high gear. Tommy Aros gets zesty Latin percussion workouts on the feisty original "Do That Again," while Gentry and keyboardist Carl Evans (doing the blues) fuse to make their version of "Oye Como Va" one of the wildest in recent memory. Another well-read cover, the summery shuffle of Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World," rounds out what amounts to this band's revitalization as they enter their second decade in pop-jazz consciousness. ~ Jonathan Widran