Winelight cover
Released

If smooth were to be defined by just one record sleeve, this would be it: a very full wine glass and saxophone bell gleaming in soft, buttery light. After making bedroom eyes with Top 40 soul across his recording career at Kudu in the 1970s, Grover paired with Bill Withers and rose all the way to Number 2 on the charts with “Just the Two Of Us,” attaining Adult Contemporary ubiquity in the process. But the other tunes here are just as smooth, from the slippery satin of the title track to “Let It Flow (For “Dr. J”)” a jazz-funk ode to the smooth of basketball himself, with Washington, Jr. switching between alto, tenor, and soprano sax with ease.

Andy Beta

Suggestions
Dreamin’ Wild cover

Dreamin’ Wild

Donnie & Joe Emerson
Loveland cover

Loveland

Lonnie Liston Smith
To Know Without Knowing cover

To Know Without Knowing

Mulatu Astatke, Black Jesus Experience
Blowout cover

Blowout

John Carroll Kirby
Soul Village cover

Soul Village

Walter Bishop Jr.
Electric Africa cover

Electric Africa

Manu Dibango
Encounters cover

Encounters

George Shaw
DonatoDeodato cover

DonatoDeodato

João Donato, Eumir Deodato
From the Closet cover

From the Closet

Daryle Chinn
Fancy Dancer cover

Fancy Dancer

Bobbi Humphrey