Love Stories

Now that the genetic code of life has been broken, Frank McComb offers a glimpse of how that scientific breakthrough may affect the music world. With the musical DNA from Donny Hathaway's Fender Rhodes piano and Stevie Wonder's mini-Moog synthesizer, McComb's debut comes off as a romantic mutation of those famous musical genes. He's nowhere near the songwriter that they are just yet, but McComb's vocal texture is so eerily similar to those giants that his debut shouldn't qualify for what is being called "neo-soul" music. This is the real '70s thing--à la Hathaway's Extension of a Man period and Wonder's Music of My Mind. McComb obviously relishes his influences, and he benefits from the guiding production hand of his former boss in Buckshot LeFonque, Branford Marsalis. It also helps that he uses one core all-star jazz group throughout the 14-song set, including Marsalis's sax, Cameroonian Richard Bona's bass, and Russell Gunn's trumpet. The synth pieces have more spirit than the piano pieces, or, said another way, he does Stevie better than he does Donny, with "Love Natural" and "Wasting Your Time" among the best of the 12 originals that McComb displays. And he's not completely stuck in the past--"(They're Gonna Be) Looking at You" and "Listen to Your Heart" have trip-hop's drum & bass feel. --Mark Ruffin