Sounds...And Stuff Like That!!

AMG Review of Sounds...And Stuff Like That!!

Richard S. Ginell
All Music Guide

With ears dead set on the trends of the moment but still drawing now and then on his jazz past, Quincy Jones came up with another classy-sounding pop album loaded with his ever-growing circle of musician friends. Disco was king in 1978 and Jones bows low with the ebullient dance hit "Stuff Like That" -- which is several cuts above the norm for that genre -- along with a healthy quota of elegantly produced soul allads. Yet amidst the pop stuff, Jones still manages to do something fresh and memorable within the jazz sphere with a gorgeous chart of Herbie Hancock's "Tell Me a Bedtime Story." Hancock himself sits in impeccably on electric piano, and violinist Harry Lookofsky painstakingly overdubs one of Hancock's transcribed solos on 15 violins. Despite the cast of hundreds that is now de rigueur for Quincy Jones, the record does not sound over-produced due to the silken engineering and careful deployment of forces.