You Have Reached Mike Phillips

Album Review

Alto saxophonist Mike Phillips wants to be more than just another smooth jazz player riffing melodically over prerecorded rhythm tracks, so he tricks out his debut album, You Have Reached Mike Phillips, with lots of ear-catching gimmicks. Harking back to his busking days, he includes moments recorded on commuter-train and subway stations; he has his young daughter sing his main theme, "You Have Reached Mike Phillips," a play on a telephone answering machine message; on "A True Story (Tabernacle - ATL)," he has Audra Woodard recite a poem that sounds like an erotic encounter between two people, until it turns out to be between a man and his saxophone; and he adds vocals to occasional tracks. All of this makes the album more interesting to listen to than your average smooth jazz outing, over which Phillips solos pleasantly like soprano saxists George Howard and Kenny G.