Two years on from Sun, an album that found Mario Biondi with Incognito and stellar guests including Chaka Khan and Al Jarreau, the grizzly down low tones of the Italian crooner are now to the fore once more on a brand new, much poppier, album called Beyond.
It’s not a jazz album at all but like a lot of Biondi’s work is of direct appeal to many jazz listeners particularly people who like to dance to his blend of soul, funk, and disco. Tracks include ‘Open Up Your Eyes’, which begins in cheesy Europop style with an Air France flight announcement signalling a final call departure, (hint hint at a new route ahead?), the Biondi style blending energetic funk, soul and disco loading in the sounds of Bary White, Chic, and at his most tender Luther Vandross.
The ballad ‘All I Want Is You’ has been written by Dee Dee Bridgewater, and among the guests the Dap Kings crop up on the Staxified ‘Heart of Stone’ written by Bernard Butler, who made his name with Britpop band Suede. Quite often a fast and furious dance-driven affair the album intermittently comes alive with an injection of real pace and abandonment and ‘Blind’ is one of the obvious standouts of intial listens, the Chic influence cleverly folded in and moulded to suit the Biondi sound. SG