What's The Word

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Guitarist JK has created a terrific background album: something you can slip on as you sit in traffic, wash dishes, spend time with your significant other. This is smooth jazz with a dab of soul: most of the songs are instrumentals featuring JK's pleasant if unadventurous guitar stylings. But on a handful of tracks Robyn Springer and Gerrell Gaddis sing, and the CD comes to life. When Springer takes the lead on Ain't It Good to Know, the album leaps to the foreground. You pull over in traffic, put down the dishes, cuddle closer and just listen.

--C.J.F.