Gino Vannelli

Imagine Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, and Earth, Wind & Fire all jamming together in some after-hours superhero session. Now pick your jaw up off the floor and tune into Italian-Canadian pop powerhouse Gino Vannelli, because his music is as close as anyone’s ever come to such a celestial jazz/funk/soul sensation. Most of the world knows Vannelli best for the sleek, slinky R&B sparkle of his 1978 blockbuster, “I Just Wanna Stop,” but long before that, the steamy, syncopated synth-funk stew he and his keyboard-wizard brother, Joe, cooked up on “People Gotta Move” made Gino the first white singer ever to appear on Soul Train. And when new wave changed the game in the ‘80s, Vannelli answered back with some new moves of his own on the electro-charged dance-pop hit “Black Cars.”

Expect the unexpected as pop-soul prince Gino cranks up his classical side, in Next Steps.

Sure, Gino Vannelli soared up the charts with a string of smooth, soulful singles in the ’70s and ’80s, but the lion-maned pop star started out as a jazz-schooled, Ravel-loving child prodigy, and he never abandoned his passion for powerful sounds from all spheres. In between touring with Stevie Wonder and strutting his stuff on The Midnight Special, you might find him feeding his classical jones by joining forces with the Royal Philharmonic for the daring orchestral suite “A Pauper in Paradise,” or, later, embracing his inner Pavarotti while belting out the bold, operatic tones of “Canto.” And just to prove there’s nothing he can’t do, he even makes prog-rock sound funky on “The Evil Eye.”

Uncover the jazzy side of Gino with fusion fests and torch-song triumphs, in Deep Cuts.

Even in Vannelli’s peppiest pop confections and sweetest soul ballads, there’s a quality that makes it all undeniably Gino — a jazzy streak that goes all the way back to his days as a young drum student infatuated with Elvin Jones. “Poor Happy Jimmy (Tribute to Jim Croce),” written in sorrow for the songsmith’s tragic passing, marks a whispery feel for Vannelli’s powerful pipes, with a bossa-jazz backing bringing smooth-jazz star Michael Franks to mind. The synthesizer fanfares and percolating percussion of “Where Am I Going” blend jazz-fusion with some R&B bump and a little Latin lilt for good measure. And you can practically see the smoke rings rising in the near-empty after-hours saloon that must be the setting for the slow-cooking torch-ballad-with-a-twist “Cry Baby.”

This is where we answer the complex question, “Who is Gino Vannelli?” Well, the same man who shook his tight-trousered groove thang with gusto on the Soul Train stage was just as comfortable fronting a jazz big band, mixing it up with a full-scale symphony orchestra, and even venturing into the Vatican to belt out operatic tunes in a command performance for the Pope. And that’s exactly what makes Vannelli one of a kind — how many other artists have scored on the Pop, R&B, Jazz, and Classical charts, making every stylistic turn seem effortless? No single side of Vannelli’s sound could exist without the others, so we’ve put them all together in one spot for you — the blue-eyed soul jams, the orchestral epics, the fiery fusion excursions, the pure pop perfection. It’s all here, and it’s all Gino.