A musician who doesn't have a label deal records some songs and puts them on a website that distributes indie MP3s. These songs have got the goods and word gets out. He ends up with thousands of downloads based on Internet buzz. Not such a rare thing now, but it was back in 1999 when Euge Groove put his songs up on the now defunct MP3.com site. After years as a successful sideman that included a stint with Tower of Power and tours with Tina Turner and Richard Marx he was ready to toss his hat into the already sax-heavy smooth jazz marketplace. He wasn't signed at the time. He funded the sessions himself, sought out Paul Brown's hit making and mixing skills to enhance the package and hoped to get signed by an indie, start a little buzz and eventually get signed by a major. By the time Brown was available to add the final touches it seemed like most smooth jazz fans owned at least a fragment of the resulting CD. As it turned out he went straight to a major label, signing with Warner Bros just as the radio format was peaking. Those tracks easily found their way to the top of the charts and Groove was off and running. When you've got the chops, instincts, songwriting skills, some business savvy, passion and commitment who's going to stop you? 
 
The smooth jazz genre has been subject to a lot of bashing recently and Paul Brown has been much maligned as a creator of formula music but when Brown gets his hands on a strong artist with some solid material he really can work some magic in the studio. Musicians like Groove make a strong case for the fact that smooth jazz/pop instrumental/contemporary jazz/whatever we're gonna call it can be a wonderful thing. Euge Groove (the album and the artist) hits you with one song after another that stick in your head and get under your skin. The first three songs on this are a triple whammy of chart climbing hits. "Romeo and Juliet" lures you in with a captivating groove that sways, then glides into the kind of hook that makes you want to make up some words and sing along. The opening notes of "Sneak-A-Peek" sound like trademark Brown from his work with Boney but with one big clear note on the sax Groove brings his identity to the foreground. He's got presence. This one fires into a circular melody line driven by layers of horns that has become one of Groove's trademarks, while Groove solos in the foreground delivering some ferocious blasts of notes that are played so tight and clean that you don't realize the complexity of what he's doing. "Vinyl" is a retro-soul flavored gem spiced up with layers of wah-wah guitar, a hypnotic little synth line and two saxes playing counterpoint melodies over these sounds from Brown's arsenal of studio ear-candy. Pure fun for the headphone set. The opening solo in "Truly Emotional" is just gorgeous, the song cuts loose and he's playing deep and low with the rhythm section percolating under him then he hits us with another hook buoyed by strings and an overdubbed horn section. "Lay It Down" shimmers under Browns glossy surface as Grooves sax cuts through with an intensity that you rarely hear in a romantic sax ballad. He knows how to work a cover too. He weaves his alto around the base melody of "Another Sad Love Song," syncopates it and shifts the phrasing to the point where it sounds like an original that references the melody of another song rather than a cover of the song itself. "The Last Song" an anthemic gospel-flavored power ballad trades the studio bells and whistles in for pure emotion. This is the kind of gripping show-stopper that quiets a crowd and stops a listener in their tracks, either ready to scream for an encore or push play and start it over from the top.  
 
This is straight down the center smooth jazz at its best. Naysayers would argue that that sentence was an oxymoron but they haven't been driving the interstate in a rental car with nothing but a radio pushing buttons like mad trying to find something to stick with then hit "Romeo and Juliet" right where the hook kicks in. It's a feeling and as the title of one of Groove's later albums said, it Just Feels Right.