Gabriela Anders is Argentinean, hailing from Buenos Aires. This beautiful, talented and oh-so-yummy young lady delivers us a SUPERB and CONSISTENT Latin tinged "smooth jazz" set and has the production talents of George Duke, Paul Brown and Matt Pearson to lean on. The end result is a soul/jazz lovers dream. Most 'smooth jazz' leaves me colder than a snow man's naughty bits, but this album warmed me up no end. Vocally she comes to us in an extremely sensual and sexy way indeed. Imagine a vocal fusion of Astrud Gilberto and Chante Moore. Interested? Some of her vocal phrasing echoes of Sade, but this lady is far superior and has a much wider, varied and more interesting vocal range. The only disappointing track is the dreadful reggae tinged "Seven Days", so simply program your CD / MP3 player to skip this blip and sit back and just ENJOY.I could write reams on this album, so in short the album is smooth, jazzy, summery, soulful, well produced and very, very more-ish. There are a few cover on here, including what has to be the best ever remake of "The Girl from Ipanema". This is a soul-lovers delight; immeasurably soulful, sultry and perfect for the Quiet Storm slot. George Duke really has pulled off a great one here and it's nothing short of EXCELLENT. The other cover is of Roberta Flack's 1988 gem "You Know What It's Like" and is more true to the original but perhaps mellower. Soul hero, Eric Benet adds his mighty fine tonsils to the mix on the spine tingling duet "Forever". I really can't applaud this CD enough and it has to rate as one of the best vocal jazz fusion sets of the late 90s explosion, and as equal in stature to contemporary sets by Marilyn Scott or Hillary James. A further two album ensued after 2000, available on Amazon, but these sadly lacked the power and impact of this CD.
Barry Towler
The Vibe Scribe
The Vibe Scribe
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