G Force

Let the photo-negative album cover fool you, as Arista obscured Kenny Gorelick’s race on the cover while pitching his 1983 album to R&B radio. It didn’t hurt that fusion keyboardist Jeff Lorber is all over the album and it’s executive produced by R&B kingmaker Kashif. Kashif was riding a hot hand in the early 1980s, making hits for Evelyn “Champagne” King, George Benson, Howard Johnson, and himself (and he was just two years away from doing it for a young singer named Whitney Houston) and it’s his silky, synthesized strain of R&B all over the album, with judicious use of that horn. If the very thought of putting on a Kenny G album for enjoyment makes you break out in hives, it’s easy to hear this as the smooth album Kashif himself never got around to making.