DAN SIEGEL: Unity

While “smooth jazz” is most commonly used as a pejorative these days, there was a time in the early 1980s when the intersection of fusion and R&B was producing a new style that had not yet picked up a negative genre name. It was bright, usually up tempo, with as many melodic hooks as anything in the Top 10 pop charts.

Here in San Diego, it was known informally as “Lights Out” jazz after the KiFM radio show of the same name that was playing this new music on the air. Ella Ruth Piggee and the Bruce Cameron-Hollis Gentry Jazz Ensemble were both local bands that were trying their hand at this straddling of jazz and soul.

Nationally, jazz players like George Benson, Chuck Mangione, David Sanborn, Bill James, and Grover Washington Jr. were all turning out smart, well-crafted albums of jazz-informed instrumental music that was more accessible than soul jazz, yet still featured virtuosic solos unlike anything in rock or soul.

Even straight-ahead jazz players like Bill Cunliffe and Bernie Dresel had put together a band in Dayton, Ohio, called Bout Time that was playing and exploring many of the same ideas.

Later on least common denominator practitioners like Spyro Gyra and Kenny G would give the music a reputation for being unimaginative, even boring—but at the beginning, it felt like there were a lot of possibilities. There was even a lot of cross-over going on here: Was a band “smooth jazz,” “new age,” or “world beat”? Artists like Andy Narell, Shadowfax and the Penguin Café Orchestra made such blurring of lines not only possible, but entirely logical.

What brings all this up is Unity, the new release from pianist Dan Siegel (who also teaches at Mira Costa College in Oceanside). Siegel’s accessible, pop-tinted fusion has always had a touch of smooth jazz to—but in the fresh, original approach that marked the best 1980s outings in that style.

Unity finds him not only surrounded by stellar jazz players (Tom Scott, Allen Hinds, Lenny Castro), but also delivering a set that’s even more accessible than 2021’s Faraway Place. It’s this combination of top-flight playing and gorgeous melodies that makes for far more than background music.

The opening track, “Best Foot Forward,” reminds not a little of the late Carl Evans Jr., San Diego’s homegrown keyboard talent who helmed Fattburger, the band that grew out of the ashes of the Cameron-Gentry ensemble after both leaders had left. Not that Siegel’s playing necessarily sounds like Evans’; it’s more a shared approach, the confident bridging of jazz and popular styles, the ability to swing while make it sound utterly seamless while floating atop as pretty a theme as you’ll hear.

“Roadside Attraction” (all nine tracks were composed by Siegel) features another strong theme; Scott provides some nice fills behind Siegel’s piano, along with Aaron Janik (trumpet) and Andy Martin (trombone). “Simple Things” has a touch of Latin harmony on Siegel’s opening figure, before coming back to a straight-up post-bop bit of fusion.

The album closes out with the title track, perhaps the most introspective piece here. Siegel comps much of the theme on chords, while the rhythm section both fills and frames around his lead.

Siegel’s combination of strong songwriting and solid arrangements make every album a worthwhile listen. It’s too bad he’s not more of a presence on the local performing scene.

Siegel performs Sunday, October 6 at Humphrey’s Backstage Live.