MIKI HOWARD
THREE WISHES
US Peak Records, 2001
1) Three Wishes 2) One Day without
You 3) Nobody 4) From Now On 5) Ain't No Way to
Treat a Lady 6) Don't Give Your Heart 7) Kiss of
a Stranger 8) Imagine 9) Bring Your Loving Home
10) Meant to Be
Produced by Sam Sims, Gary Brown, Barry Eastmond,
DaMone Arnold, Lemel Humes, Darius McCrary
At least for yours truly this CD by Miki
Howard has been the most anticipated new
release of the year so far. Miki has now signed
to the jazz/soul label Peak Records, which was
founded in 1994 by The Rippington members
Russ Freeman and Andy
Howard, and now they have also signed Phil
Perry, Regina Belle, Dotsero and Eric
Marienthal to the label roster. Thus, no
street oriented dross was to be expected from
Miki's new CD, but on the other hand, both the
label owners and the producers typically count on
the safe, tried and tested formula.
For a jazz oriented label, I would have expected
that the producer would have ventured at least
one solitaire saxophone solo, but there are no
woodwinds or brass section in the backings - the
only "compromise" to the jazzier style
is the acoustic jazz ballad Kiss of a
Stranger, which Miki delivers over a
stripped down acoustic instrumentation: drums,
bass and guitar. My first impression was a
feeling of disappointment when most of the
backings are strictly in the current R&B
chart format: programmed beats and keyboards,
added with a touch of guitar.
However, after a few spins the CD started to
impress me, mainly because Miki is vocally in
such a great shape, and also the tunes she has
been offered here are certainly not weak. The
most inspiring songs on display are the new Barry
Eastmond-Gordon Chambers composition Ain't
No Way to Treat a Lady, which sounds like a
future classic, and the first single pick Nobody,
penned by the same pair together with
Phil Galfston. Both tracks are set in a
professsional but neutral programmed backing, but
Miki sets the classy tunes into real fire with
her colourful, stunning reading.
I also like the aforementioned jazz tune Kiss
of a Stranger a lot, as well as the gently
flowing title track Three Wishes and the
passionate, LeMel Humes produced
reading of the old Nu Soul Habit
song Bring Your Loving Me.
The closing song is another old Nu Soul Habit
song, the title track of their 1994 album Meant
to Be, and it's partly spoilt by the
arrangement that probably tries to be blues-y but
only manages to sound messy and rocky. Also, the Gary
Brown-Barry Eastmond-Allan Rich
collaboration Don't Give Your Heart
sounds pretty predictable and too MOR-ish. Skip
those two tracks and you have a consistent
8-tracker with good melodies and truly
stimulating vocalising. (8) -IT
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