Rating: NN
Those of you expecting BTO anthems are SOL. This is a jazz album. As a prairie teenager, Bachman’s first love was jazz, and guitarist Lenny Breau his idol. Coming full circle, he’s enlisted Breau for Jazz Thing. Bachman’s vocals, as he works his way through mostly original numbers in true supper-club mellow style, are muted and sleepy. The playing is good, but the songs fail to capture any emotion other than indifference. A radical reworking of Johnny Cash’s I Walk The Line is the only risk taken here, but I’m not sure making it sound like Chet Baker – as he does on all the others songs, too – is a risk worth taking.
