Stay Awhile
By Steve Cole
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Track listing
- 1 It's Gonna Be Alright 4:01
- 2 Say It Again 3:58
- 3 Stay Awhile 4:41
- 4 When I Think of You 4:09
- 5 Think About It 4:22
- 6 Interlude 1:47
- 7 Where the Night Begins 4:38
- 8 Intimacy 5:37
- 9 Intro - Our Love 0:31
- 10 Our Love 3:16
- 11 Devotion 7:29
- Total length: 44:29
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2 Reviews
The quintessential 90's smooth jazz album
Steve Cole's debut didn't come til near the end of the decade, but for all intents and purposes I consider this record to be the gold standard of the contemporary jazz sound of the decade. The juicy Rhodes keyboards, the consistent and tasteful writing between Cole and Brian Culbertson, and the occasional spark of timeless brilliance ('When I Think Of You', the luscious title track, etc.) carry this record strongly.Sitting somewhere on the spectrum between the zzzzzzz-inducing Boney James types and the fusion-tinged awesomeness of Pat Metheny, I think Stay Awhile is a good measuring stick for one's tolerance of lighter jazz music in general. The chilled out vibes here certainly beat the shit out of Kenny G.
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I feel like artists like Steve Cole are owed something of an apology. We're in the nascency of a cultural trend towards embracing smooth music, evidenced by such things as the meteoric ascent of genres such as neo-soul and vaporwave and by the return of jazz's commercial legitimacy via artists like Kamasi Washington and Cecile McLorin Salvant. Maybe I'm projecting my own personal hopes and wishes here, but I'd like to think this trend is emblematic of a move away from the aristocratic and faintly macho rockist notions that overemphasise abrasiveness and "innovation" above all else. These notions were certainly prevelant when Steve Cole, a bright-eyed Chicago saxophonist, first debuted, during the arguable peak of America's love affair with post-Nirvana angry white dude bands. In this climate, it's easy to see why Stay Awhile was as critically mauled as it was. It was never more cool to hate MTV, Kenny G and romance and it was never more cool to shun melody like a red-headed stepchild.
But here we are, twenty years later, there exists a legitimate industry for Japanese adult contemporary music, a reverberated remix of Diana Ross's "It's Your Move" is a post-ironic millennial anthem and the world seems to have broadened its palette just a little bit. Where does that leave Steve Cole's much maligned Stay Awhile, an album once described by AllMusic's Alex Henderson as "a contrived and unimaginative blend of pop, urban contemporary and jazz"? To put it bluntly, it is a wholly unremarkable foot soldier in the "urban smooth jazz" canon, but where that statement might have once automatically disqualified it from serious consideration I would argue that there is, at the very least, something worth discussing here.
Stay Awhile is at its best and most invigorating when it's embracing hip hop and contemporary R&B aesthetics. It seems almost a conscious decision to distance Cole from the staid and sexless conservatism of his predecessors that he adds whistling g-funk vocoder, baritone spoken word choruses and record scratches sparingly but strategically throughout the record. The "urban contemporary" production choices add the most depth and texture to these compositions, and Cole's much wider embracing of them in later records like NY LA can't help but read as a tacit acknowledgement of that. The glittering splash of electric guitar leads and vocoder harmonies on "When I Think of You" could have easily scored a Jon B or Ashanti ballad. Likewise, it feels as though "Intimacy" is just one Warren G line away from committing entirely to its g-funk ancestry. But it ascends mere comparisons on the back of its sheer musical value, and the tightness of the production. Many of the instruments here, including Brian Culbertson's endlessly expressive and consistently honed electric piano, shine brilliantly. Drum fills, cymbals and throbbing funk bass are all mixed to a sheen, organically invigorating the music away from inflexibility.
It's a shame, then, that Cole's musicianship is so rote. It's perfectly functional, and he's clearly a better saxophonist than either you or I will be, but it's a marriage of convenience more than anything. Expressive jazz scatting is few and far between, bookended by long stretches where he's obligated to do nothing more than conform to the rigid structures inherent in the pop melodies. While it's perfectly adequate, it will hardly make converts out of anyone already convinced that they don't like this particular tenor sax tone, prevalent as it is in much lesser examples of smooth jazz. Likewise, while most of the album is elevated by the production's sense of cool nocturnal inner-city modernity, Stay Awhile can't help the occasional lapse into cliché, such as the tepid "Say It Again" with it's obnoxious final-chorus key change or particularly the unlistenable "Our Love", an unpleasantly surprising reduction into the very same conservatism this album prides itself on being above.
For that, I'd be reluctant to recommend Stay Awhile to anyone presently on the fence about this sort of music. Anyone already on board has likely heard better, but that's hardly a strike against it. As a matter of fact they might just find themselves returning to the more high-grade cuts here for their ability to fill that often underserved niche of slick, hip-hop infused smooth jams. Furthermore, as simultaneously the debut of a career that would blossom tremendously and a document of a bygone pop era it is an endlessly intriguing piece of pop history in its own right. Stay Awhile's perfect functionality is, depending on your outlook, either it's biggest boon or its most damning fault. It's likely a little of both, as it happens.
But here we are, twenty years later, there exists a legitimate industry for Japanese adult contemporary music, a reverberated remix of Diana Ross's "It's Your Move" is a post-ironic millennial anthem and the world seems to have broadened its palette just a little bit. Where does that leave Steve Cole's much maligned Stay Awhile, an album once described by AllMusic's Alex Henderson as "a contrived and unimaginative blend of pop, urban contemporary and jazz"? To put it bluntly, it is a wholly unremarkable foot soldier in the "urban smooth jazz" canon, but where that statement might have once automatically disqualified it from serious consideration I would argue that there is, at the very least, something worth discussing here.
Stay Awhile is at its best and most invigorating when it's embracing hip hop and contemporary R&B aesthetics. It seems almost a conscious decision to distance Cole from the staid and sexless conservatism of his predecessors that he adds whistling g-funk vocoder, baritone spoken word choruses and record scratches sparingly but strategically throughout the record. The "urban contemporary" production choices add the most depth and texture to these compositions, and Cole's much wider embracing of them in later records like NY LA can't help but read as a tacit acknowledgement of that. The glittering splash of electric guitar leads and vocoder harmonies on "When I Think of You" could have easily scored a Jon B or Ashanti ballad. Likewise, it feels as though "Intimacy" is just one Warren G line away from committing entirely to its g-funk ancestry. But it ascends mere comparisons on the back of its sheer musical value, and the tightness of the production. Many of the instruments here, including Brian Culbertson's endlessly expressive and consistently honed electric piano, shine brilliantly. Drum fills, cymbals and throbbing funk bass are all mixed to a sheen, organically invigorating the music away from inflexibility.
It's a shame, then, that Cole's musicianship is so rote. It's perfectly functional, and he's clearly a better saxophonist than either you or I will be, but it's a marriage of convenience more than anything. Expressive jazz scatting is few and far between, bookended by long stretches where he's obligated to do nothing more than conform to the rigid structures inherent in the pop melodies. While it's perfectly adequate, it will hardly make converts out of anyone already convinced that they don't like this particular tenor sax tone, prevalent as it is in much lesser examples of smooth jazz. Likewise, while most of the album is elevated by the production's sense of cool nocturnal inner-city modernity, Stay Awhile can't help the occasional lapse into cliché, such as the tepid "Say It Again" with it's obnoxious final-chorus key change or particularly the unlistenable "Our Love", an unpleasantly surprising reduction into the very same conservatism this album prides itself on being above.
For that, I'd be reluctant to recommend Stay Awhile to anyone presently on the fence about this sort of music. Anyone already on board has likely heard better, but that's hardly a strike against it. As a matter of fact they might just find themselves returning to the more high-grade cuts here for their ability to fill that often underserved niche of slick, hip-hop infused smooth jams. Furthermore, as simultaneously the debut of a career that would blossom tremendously and a document of a bygone pop era it is an endlessly intriguing piece of pop history in its own right. Stay Awhile's perfect functionality is, depending on your outlook, either it's biggest boon or its most damning fault. It's likely a little of both, as it happens.
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Catalog
24 Nov 2022
27 Oct 2022
-
1
It's Gonna Be Alright
-
2
Say It Again
-
3
Stay Awhile
-
4
When I Think of You
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5
Think About It
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6
Interlude
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7
Where the Night Begins
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8
Intimacy
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9
Intro - Our Love
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10
Our Love
-
11
Devotion
26 Sep 2022
2 Jul 2021
5 Apr 2020
15 Feb 2020
28 Jan 2019
10 Apr 2013
13 Nov 2009
8 Sep 2009
12 Jun 2009
23 Sep 2007
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