2004 · Album
I'm All for You
Blue Note Records · Personnel: Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone), Hank Jones (piano), George Mraz (bass), Paul Motian (drums)
Ballads at Their Most Unhurried
Lovano explores what slow music can do when given room to breathe and shift.
I'm All For You finds Joe Lovano stepping into ballad territory with Hank Jones, George Mraz, and Paul Motian — musicians he'd worked with before, which matters because there's no introductory phase here. Everyone knows the terrain. What strikes you first is the restraint. These are full tunes stretched out, not miniatures or standards rushed through in five minutes. Jones plays with a kind of old-fashioned elegance that anchors everything; Lovano's tenor settles into registers that don't demand attention so much as invite it. The rhythm section doesn't push. Mraz and Motian move deliberately, and that deliberation is the whole point. David Franklin, writing in JazzTimes, caught something essential about the project: Lovano and the band were interested in how slower music could be "rhythmically diverse and free within the music" while keeping the emotional temperature steady. That's the listening experience in a sentence. It's not static. Things shift underneath you, but gently. The album sits apart from Lovano's other work because it has no agenda beyond exploring what happens when you give yourself permission to linger. Critics responded favorably — The Guardian gave it four stars, and the approach resonated enough that people still reach for it when they want something that doesn't rush. This isn't a breakthrough record or a turning point in anyone's career. It's a specialists' album, something for listeners already comfortable with Lovano's sound who want to hear him in a specific mood. If you're new to him, start elsewhere first. But if you've spent time with his work and want to understand what he does when the tempo drops and there's no place to hide, this is the record that shows it cleanest.
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Where next?
More by Joe Lovano
All 45 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
