Mel Davis: Its About Time!

The inlay notes that Mel Davis endorses Hammond B-3 organs; he likes playing a lot of notes on the keyboard. The opener/title track is a sentimental ballad with Freddie Hendrix on fluegelhorn, who turns to trumpet on a funky second track where Ronny Jordan replaces Mark Bowers on guitar and there’s also a saxophone solo and a lot of percussion. Davis, Jordan and yet another busy percussionist are the trio on a third track, on the fourth another joins in with a guy who’s been there before, on “Will it Go Round in Circles” Davis sings drawlingly, “13th (Death March) — Portrait” is composer-credited to Jimmy Smith/ Wes Montgomery and Hendrix is back on fluegelhorn. The saxophonist is back, Bruce Williams recognisably on soprano. Davis sings again on “It Was a Very Good Year,” not beguilingly, and the “Motif” he is noted as playing on some tracks opens a “Lovely” no less shy of clichés, He can swing, he likes to sing, there’s much more of the latter than the former on this anything but musically challenging, basically pop-funk organ-guitar-etc. with percussion set. Ronny Jordan endorses Davis as “a born genius and an extraordinary talent.” Would be nice to hear evidence.