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Classic Recordings: Al Jarreau – This Time

Nine tracks from the 1980 album where Al Jarreau worked out how to be a pop star without giving up a single thing that made him extraordinary.

This Time, 1980

By 1980 Al Jarreau had made four albums and built a devoted following, particularly in Europe, on the strength of a vocal technique with no real precedent — percussive, elastic, capable of imitating instruments, and rooted in serious jazz training.

This Time, produced by Jay Graydon, was the commercial breakthrough. Graydon was a Los Angeles session guitarist and producer at the centre of the West Coast studio world — he played the solo on Steely Dan's "Peg" and co-wrote "After the Love Has Gone" for Earth, Wind & Fire — and he gave Jarreau a polished, radio-ready setting without smoothing out the vocal invention.

The album went gold, won a Grammy, and set up Breakin' Away the following year, which made him a star.

What to listen for

"Spain (I Can Recall)" is the centrepiece and one of the great vocal performances in any genre. Chick Corea's instrumental is fiendishly difficult; Jarreau sings the melody, writes and sings a lyric, and then sings the solo. The Return to Forever original had already made it a fusion standard, and Jarreau's version is the one most people know.

"Never Givin' Up" and "Gimme What You Got" are the up-tempo tracks and the most obviously commercial things here — and both are considerably more rhythmically complex than they first appear.

"Alonzo" is where the vocal experimentation is most exposed. Listen to the percussive consonants and the way he uses breath as an instrument.

"Distracted" and "(A Rhyme) This Time" are the deep cuts, and "Your Sweet Love" and "Love Is Real" are the ballads.

"(If I Could Only) Change Your Mind" closes.

Go deeper

Breakin' Away (1981) is the follow-up and the commercial peak, containing "We're in This Love Together" and "Mornin'."

Look to the Rainbow (1977), the live double album recorded in Europe, is the record musicians point to — it captures what he actually did on a stage, without production.

Chick Corea and Return to Forever's Light as a Feather contains the original "Spain" and is essential.

And Jay Graydon is worth following into the West Coast session world — he and David Foster made a great deal of the most immaculately recorded music of that era.

One last note on the balance. Commercial breakthroughs usually cost a jazz singer something, and the remarkable thing about This Time is how little was surrendered — the production is glossy, and the vocal invention on "Spain" and "Alonzo" is as unfettered as anything on the live records. Graydon understood that the strangeness was the selling point rather than the obstacle.

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