This album has it all. Minucci runs through all musical styles with elegance. Don't bother with the subsequent 'smooth jazz' albums - unless you like safe, anodyne music. Starting with 'Courageous Cats', a gloriously heavy swing tempo kicks in with a walking bass pumping the whole thing along. A funky horn section pulls the whole thing together.
'Phat City' is a laid back funk groove with steel strung and electric taking turns in between the twin-guitar verse and chorus. A great horn section break lifts it halfway through.
'Only You' is a 'power ballad' starting with nylon strung guitar, leading to a climactic overdriven electric finale.
'Sitting in Limbo' is a reggae-infused vocal track which chugs along nicely. Possibly the least strong of them all.
'Hideaway' picks up the tempo with a memorable bass and synth backing riff that gets stronger as it goes, picking up piano and guitars as it goes. A delicate twin-tracked acoustic plays the melody and leads to the inevitable jazz electric finishing it off in a truly memorable flourish of inventive soloing.
'Dig the Dirt' rocks along with a funky bass and dirty electric guitar playing the melody. Harmony electric guitars take it to the wonderful chorus - power chords and all. A wah-wah solo takes us back to the verse and a grand finale played around the chorus is absolutely fabulous - a screaming guitar fades to the unlikely sound of a church organ playing just the backing which then takes us right out. Great stuff.
'Mountains' is an orchestral-type piece with shades of Delius' 'On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring' (if I recall my classics). Plenty of light and shade, a lone nylon-strung guitar plays a gentle melody accompanied by strings. Picking up backing, it crescendos with timpani-like floor tom and electric guitars into a Minucci-soft attack guitar solo, quietening to revisit the start again, and a cuckoo-like finale played on the acoustic.
'Realm Of The Senses' brings us back to a more up-tempo number. Strummed steel-string guitar and rock-solid drums provide the backing for a strong electric guitar melody. Mid-way we get a really rocky power-chord section leading into an entirely appropriate electric solo. Taking us out is a superb Hammond organ played over the really tight bass and drum backing.
'Moment Of Love' is the album's second vocal track. A fairly standard love-song at first impression, but it's not in the vomit-inducing style of Witney Houston, et al. It's a low-key number but no less passionate for it. It really sounds as if it was sung from the heart. A nylon-strung guitar solo breaks it up beautifully at points. Influenced by Minucci's divorce? Who knows. It's a real oasis of tranquillity and mood-change among the other tracks.
'Jewels' (Parts 1-4)
What can I say about this sequence of tracks to adequately do it justice? It's a roller coaster ride of a title track. Starting gently with acoustic guitars it leads into a prog-rock-meets-jazz-fusion number. Musically complex and dynamic, it is simply superb. Listen to Part 2 very loud if you can. The combination of rock-guitar, syncopated drum and bass backing is just out of this world. Play 'hand drums' along with it and it will leave you breathless at the end. Parts 3 and 4 bring the number back down to earth with the refrain. We've landed - phew!
To sum it up: Minucci at his best and most creative since early Special EFX went 'World' or 'Smooth Jazz'. Go buy it now.
Chieli Minucci's best ever solo album