Customer Reviews

Is Love Enough

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I absolutely love George Duke's "Is love enough?" Cd. While not all songs are 5 stars for me, the prelude, interlude and postlude are amazing. Other tracks which I can listen to over and over again are "It's Summertime" ( talk about the right sound for an open air party in summer), "Love Songs" and the fooonky "Kinda Low" with Ndugu Chancler being a stand out. Funk master-drummer!
GET IT for a great mix of Smooth Jazz/R&B and Funk.

I own several George Duke CD's and really like them all. For some reason I don't care for any of the songs up to track 11 on this one....How About You, Laid Back Sunday, and Thinkin' About You... are the best selections. Other than that this isn't enough for me!!!

GEORGE DUKE has done it again. To me, love is MORE than enough! This CD is astronomically jazzy. I ABSOLUTELY love the prelude, "Into the Future", the interlude "Space and Time", and ESPECIALLY the postlude "Back to the Future". The CD is not only sophisticated, it is also classy, sexy (in its own way), and cerebral. This CD is TRULY an asronomical reward. This CD ABSOLUTELY deserves an award.

This collectionlacks cohesion and the great Duke spirit that shines so brightly on other releases. I wish 'Thief in the Night' would be released on cd. that one, along with 'Night After Night', are a couple of my favorites. I noticed that 'Night After Night' isn't on this list either, but other entrys such as 'Don't Let Go', 'Master of the Game', 'Reach For It", and 'Rendezvous' are here ...and they are all GREAT!

Have followed George Duke over the years as he continues the expected high quality and innovative exploration of the art form. This CD is really for great listening with its variety, artists displaying different music styles. Truly a must have!

When you hit a point where you feel you have to cross bridges when it comes to commenting on music,it really is not that enjoyable. I don't want to do that hear but I must say;there are very few George Duke albums I would give a below 4 or 5 star rating.Almost everything in his catalog,in particular his last three or four albums are amazing. During the 90's George,same as with many other 70's era jazz-funk musicians were being forced to compete with the fairly generic genre that was 90's smooth jazz.In terms of being funky and melodic smooth jazz had it's moments but was all very calculated. And even though in many ways Duke's previous album Illusions laid the analog synths on heavy and tried it's best here and there,it could'nt help having a kind of boring formula for the most part.This CD is no different in that way.A lot of the songs here lean toward the slow and plodding;ballads and smooth grooves that melodically really don't go anywhere and even with some piano soloing that's impressive tends to repeat itself more often then not. And considering the astounding achievements Duke has made musically on classics such as Feel or even a recent gem such as Face the Music there really wasn't any reason for a musican and artist of his calibar to....well honestly sell out in such an obvious way. One thing that makes this stand out is that there are more spurts of hard funk to save the day-a great example is the title song and "Kinda Low" with his old band.It's hard to figure out why Duke didn't chose to extend this sound for the majority of the album but I suppose there was a reason for including what are now very dated shuffling,hip-hop/jazz jams like the well intentioned "It's Our World" and "Back In The Day". One really good song here is "This Place I Call Home",which has a place in the South African juju/world music type of jazz that was all over the place during this time."Whatever Happened To..." is one of the mellower songs but lyrically comments on the situation this album presents:the concepts of artistic freedom,goodwill for people and the "unique voice" as Duke himself puts it that was so previlant during the funk era of the 70's seem to have faded away and one actually has to ask the question "what happened". The music is appropriately probing and Duke earns one star there just for the level of self awareness.The intro and outro "Into The Future/Back From The Future" are great,head turning polyphonic synth journeys that.....well would've been better served having been streched out into full songs as they'd been on his past albums.The situation here ends up being if the album were whittled down to a 10-12 song album that was under an hour long made up of the better material here,with some of the tunes streched out a little longer this would have been a sure fire classic. Instead it ends up being a solid album with some great stuff,a few good songs and a bit too much filler material. Luckilly for us George Duke would do better in the years to come.

Picked it out of the the discount bin last year and what a find! Soaring vocals, romantic ballads and funky riffs. Great driving album!