Out of his many solo projects through 2016,
Velvet Portraits is
Terrace Martin's most concentrated work. As with the releases that preceded it, styles continually bump against one another and mingle -- freewheeling funk and gritty throwback soul are abundant -- but this one involves no rapping. Some of the ideas were cooked up while
Martin was working on
Kendrick Lamar's
To Pimp a Butterfly, an album with which this shares a couple elements and some personnel. It plays out like it was conceived during relaxed daytime sessions on rare weekends when
Martin and his associates were able to break away from professional and personal obligations.
Martin primarily sticks to his tangy alto saxophone and a battery of keyboards, setting the tone with a lazing but impassioned intro that settles into "Valdez Off Crenshaw," where he and his group make like a West Coast version of
Blue Thumb-era
Crusaders. The sunbaked groove incorporates
Donny Hathaway's "Valdez in the Country."
Donny's daughter
Lalah happens to be among the diverse group of vocalists. She takes the lead on the aching "Oakland," a quiet-fire ballad. Among the album's drummers is
Martin's father
Curly, who is honored with "Curly Martin," a slowly intensifying instrumental that involves two of the Bruner brothers (drummer
Ronald, bassist
Thundercat) and
Robert Glasper (on Rhodes) as most of its rhythm section.
Martin, in vocoder-ized form, is the lead voice on only "With You," a blissed-out G-funk glider. While it occasionally careens and meanders with some sequences that are merely pleasant or heavy-lidded,
Velvet Portraits is one of those generously warm albums, seemingly designed for unwinding, that isn't likely to wear out its welcome. ~ Andy Kellman
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