A classic example of hearing one song and thinking the album would be great, though in fairness the single
was excellent. Sadly though, as we've seen with the albums featured here, often it seems all of the effort has gone into the one song that you heard before buying the album, leaving the rest of it empty, dull and uninspiring. Such indeed was the case when I foolishly went ahead and purchased this album, hoping that there would be more tracks on it like the single I had heard, which was being played all over the radio, but it was to prove, as we'll see, a bad idea.
All that jazz --- Breathe --- 1988 (A&M)
I suppose I should have been wary of this album from the beginning, as it has the word “jazz” in it, and I am not a fan of that style of music. However, I assumed it was just the old saying, and didn't mean that the music actually had jazz influences. But it does, not that you'd know it from the single I had heard at the time, which was a huge hit for them, “Hands to Heaven”.
It's a beautiful, soulful ballad, reeks of class and did in fact almost hit number one in the charts, so so far so good, yes? It was followed by another track which had been their first single, but not very successful, however after “Hands to Heaven” stormed the charts they re-released it, and it did very well. As it happened, the copy of the album I bought had not got “Don't tell me lies” on it, although I'm informed later pressings did. It's a faster, boppier song, which I felt would do really well, but it failed to get into the top forty, even on second release.
The final decent song on the album is yet another single, another chart-topper and indeed another ballad, the closer from the album, “How can I fall”.
Unfortunately, that's it. The album opens with “Jonah”, which I found too jazzy and funky for my tastes
Then there's the title track
“All this I should have known” (was this album trying to tell me something?)
“Liberties of love”
And the less said about “Any trick”, the better!
In fairness, it's not that “All that j!zz --- sorry, JAZZ!” is a terrible album. If you're a dance/funk or even jazz fan you'll probably like it. But on the basis of the singles I had not expected that kind of music, and so I was sorely disappointed with what I got. Just proves the old adage: “Listen before you buy.”