GROVER WASHINGTON JR — All the King's Horses (review)

GROVER WASHINGTON JR — All the King's Horses album cover Album · 1972 · RnB Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
Sean Trane
First Grover album (as far as I know) on Creed Taylor’s label, and it is a fairly typical CTI product, somewhere close to its often-instrumental smooth jazz reputation. With the usual CTI suspects, like Bob James, Carter, Airto, Gale, etc. you’ll find as well Cobham, Purdie (both on drums), Pepper Adams, Spinozza and quite a bit more lesser-known guests.

To be honest, I never understood how the present album got its reputation as Grover’s best, because it’s often soft jazzy schmaltz, and its title (taken after Aretha’s song covered in second position) is quite misleading as to its contents. Don’t get me wrong, the music in itself is flawlessly played – how could it have possibly been otherwise with such a cast – but the soundscapes coming from the album is more like an insipid soup than a tasty and daring treat. The level of energy simply doesn’t rise above the lethargic (Where Is The Love) and often hovers with the soporific (Body And Soul) and at best/worse with the plain boring (the instrumental cover of Lean On Me). Tracks like Lover Man, despite its Interlude n°2 middle-section, which happens to be the album’s peak of excitement (read mildly interesting). The closing Love Song 1700 quickly ruins the momentum gained, despite gaining a tad of interest with some medieval-baroque folk sequences evolving into a solid fusion in the middle section.

Definitely not essential (CTI Records products are very rarely so). It’s kind of two bad that Grover and the gang waited until the last two tracks to get going. Too little too late to save the album.
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