Boz Scaggs has never been shy about wading into waters far from the safe harbor of hits such as “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle,” both from his breakthrough 1976 album, “Silk Degrees.”

He has teamed with rockers Steve Miller and Donald Fagen, r & b heavy Booker T. & the MGs, and bluesman Charles Brown. Five years ago he released a CD of standards, “But Beautiful,” that topped the jazz charts. Now, between tending a wine vineyard in Napa County, Calif., running his San Francisco nightclub, Slims, stints with bluegrass and rock groups, Scaggs is back for a jazz encore.

On his new CD, “Speak Low,” Scaggs, 64, interprets material by Johnny Mercer, Duke Ellington and others. He performs two shows Sunday at the Wilbur Theatre, with a jazz ensemble led by pianist Gil Goldstein.

Herald: As a nonjazz singer coming at this project, did any jazz players give you a hard time?

Scaggs: I haven’t had any threatening phone calls, and no one has bugged me. As an artist, I’m interested in all kinds of music. Like most people in this day and age, there’s all kinds of music around us. I’m a singer and musician who likes to try a lot of different things.

Was there anything daunting about it?

I’m not a jazz musician and I’m not trying to be. I’m just singing songs in my own style and with my own interpretation. There’s nothing particularly daunting about it, but it is challenging technically. Some of the songs, like “Invitation” from the newalbum and “Sophisticated Lady” from “But Beautiful,” have some odd jumps of melody and peculiar harmonic stuff. It’s challenging, but that’s why we do it.

What was your primary inspiration for the album?

The songs were the inspiration. I went through thousands of songs and got down to about 100. From there, it was just a matter of trying them on and exploring them, finding interesting arrangements and songs that fit my style - sort of taking ownership of them to create a new interpretation and put my own spin on them.

You’re best known for your pop songs, but you make a point of performing all kinds of styles. Why?

I grew up in a time when radio was exploding with a variety of music. Rock ’n’ roll was born, and rhythm and blues was evolving out of New Orleans and Memphis. It was taking all kinds of forms and shapes. The music of the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of this one goes in a lot of different directions. For someone like me who loves music, there’s no reason for me not to try the songs that Jerry Lee Lewis did or Hank Williams did or Bobby “Blue” Bland or Chet Baker did. It’s my lifeblood.

Will you sing material from other parts of your career at the Wilbur?

It will be a mix. I’ll be playing five or six songs from “Speak Low” and some songs that people know from the radio that have been adapted by this group and arranged in the style of these other traditional songs.

(Boz Scaggs at the Wilbur Theatre, Sunday at 4 and 7:30 p.m.)

Speak Low is also shot through with a haunted otherworldliness that is perfectly suited to Scaggs’ still-mesmerizing, if now enticingly coarser, nasality. Though there is not a weak track among the dozen collected here, perhaps the best evidence of Scaggs’ emergence as an exceptional jazz singer is his “Ballad of the Sad Young Men.” It takes impeccable skill and tremendous smarts to take Landesman and Wolf’s bleak, grey landscape and transform in into a kaleidoscope of bittersweet wisdom and reflection. Kurt Elling did it, and Scaggs does it just as superbly.

Scaggs decides to chill out and ‘Speak Low’

PROFILE. Boz Scaggs rose to fame in the ’70s playing a smooth hybrid of disco and rock. But unlike many performers who rose to prominence more than three decades ago, Scaggs is not just rehashing the hits. He’s doing a different kind of oldies show.

Touring behind his new album, “Speak Low,” Scaggs’ set is mostly blues and jazz standards.

“I just sort of follow my interest in music in general,” he says.

This doesn’t mean you won’t hear the same Scaggs tunes that put him on the map; you just may hear drastically different versions of his hits “Lido Shuffle” and “Lowdown.” The latter song, known for the “wonder, wonder, wonder” refrain, has recently reemerged thanks to the new John Legend song “Satisfaction,” which has a generous helping of those wonders.

Scaggs says he hasn’t heard the Legend tune, but he generally enjoys being referenced and even sampled. At least now he does.

Boz Scaggs: Speak Low (2008, Decca): Another pop singer running low on juice cracks open the old standards book. Nice, smart versions of things like "Speak Low" and "Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me," but I could do without "Dindi." Still, the main thing is that while there's nothing wrong with Scaggs' singing, there's not much special about it either -- unlike, say, Rod Stewart. Instrumentation, strings even, are always tasteful. B - Tom Hull - Jazz Prospecting

BOZ IS BACK: Rueful regret suits Boz Scaggs' melancholy voice and sparse, jazz-flavored arrangements oh-so-well on "Speak Low" (Decca, A). One of the classiest "standards" sets of recent years, this construct is built on thoughtful songs of romance where things don't work out.

The singer of "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me" is a much-gossiped-about philanderer who protests his exaggerated image. "I'll Remember April" zeros in on a romantic fixated on the past. "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" is a coded refrain from the time when gays keep their romantic longings a deep, dark secret. - JONATHAN TAKIFF, Philadelphia Daily News - Oct. 28, 2008

by Will Layman
October 31, 2008

For the record, I’m against pop stars doing late-career albums of jazz standards. After the first one or two (Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson), it became a banal and obvious move, as one-time rebels grabbed for older listeners—and respectability—by feigning sudden reverence for Gershwin and Arlen. The trend has barely abated in recent years (Alison Moyet, Rod Stewart). Let the record reflect: thumbs down on Iggy Pop doing a Sinatra cover album.

So, here is the second standards album by pop/R&B vocalist Boz Scaggs. Late career? Check. Reverence for Gershwin? Check.

But pre-judging Scaggs is a dangerous move. His career is dotted with interesting zigs and zags, even if he is best known for the disco-hip Silk Degrees from 1976 ("Lowdown" and “Lido Shuffle"). Plus, and let’s just be honest about this from the start, Scaggs has a weird-ass voice. It warbles and croaks and on just about every song he sounds like Kermit the Frog for at least a few bars. From the get-go, he’s been an unlikely pop star.

Could it be he has always been a jazz singer at heart? Well, not exactly. But this is far from being cringe-inducing music. Indeed, it has been crafted with intelligence and a notion that there is virgin territory still to be plowed in recording great old songs.

In 2003, Scaggs recorded But Beautiful with a jazz quartet. This was not the typical lushly orchestrated cheese (Rod Stewart, I am talking to your roostery old head), and Scaggs put across a nice late-night feeling that was free of pretension. It was moody stuff—slinky, acoustic, modern. He didn’t wear a fedora or stand in front of an old-fashioned microphone on the cover.

Now Scaggs has recorded a follow-up standards disc, Speak Low, that is more ambitious than his first. This time he is armed with more complex arrangements featuring a lush but atypical band: gauzy woodwinds, strings, and rhythm section. Haunting bass clarinets dodge about. Vibes shimmer and play searching blues licks. Hand percussion percolates. Boz keens, with the occasional Kermit-the-Frogian passage still audible.

The good news is that this is far from typical pop-singer-goes-jazz work. With no brassy flourishes or Nelson Riddle snappiness to fall back on, Scaggs turns to jazz pianist Gil Goldstein for arrangements of crystalline immediacy, with soloists like Bob Sheppard (saxophone) and Scott Colley (bass). Little on Speak Low, therefore, is “standard” even though the songs are well-worn standards. The title track uses a slinky tango groove that is played, however, with pastel gentleness. Ellington’s “Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me” starts with the rarely heard verse over only acoustic bass, then moves into bluesy barroom sway that invites the strings. “Skylark” is awash in Fender Rhodes and hip tenor sax swing. “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” is simply a revelation: both a lament and a lullaby painted in flutes and harp, clarinet and piano, violin and cello.

Scaggs’s voice acquits itself well in most places. He is relaxed and easy throughout, never oversinging or trying to bring some misplaced R&B affectation to songs that, history has proven, don’t need any bullshit emotionalism. Even though Scaggs grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, he long ago took on the sound of California: easy-going to a fault, cool-like-cucumber, singer-songwritery if a bit Kermitty.

And so the vocal approach here is sort of like the late-election season Obama approach: First, do no harm. Scaggs sings with an accurate coolness. He is not trying to win your vote—he just doesn’t want to lose it.

The weakness is right there: This collection winds up like incredibly tasteful and hip gift-wrapping that conceals… maybe a couple of stainless steel salt-and-pepper shakers. Gil Goldstein’s arrangement are the equivalent of a robin’s egg Tiffany box, but the vocal performance in the middle of it all is merely okay. The “Sad Young Men” arrangement is so sensational that you long to hear the words put across with intensity. Understated intensity, yes, but still intensity. What Scaggs provides is merely good, merely understated. On the tunes that require less, such as the waltzy “Sensa Fine”, the result is forgettable. On the great songs, there is a vague hollowness in the air.

My favorite track here, for Scaggs’s work, is his natural match with Jobim’s “Dindi”. The coolness in Scaggs’s voice lets him float pleasurably through this bossa and makes you wonder why someone—Goldstein, maybe?—didn’t suggest more Brazilian material. Goldstein plays some accordion here, and the combination of lushness and simplicity balances. Here, the elements are well-aligned and Scaggs seems less hollow, but it is the exception rather than the rule on Speak Low.

Old Boz fans, are you digging this kind of fairly hip jazz? Jazz fans, is there any chance that you are going to reach out for standards done thoughtfully by a former pop start? The market baffles, but music continues. Maybe Rod Stewart will hear this record and will go back to singing the blues. Everything happens for reason, right?

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Jesse Hamlin, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, October 27, 2008

NICK DERISO: There's a reason it took Boz Scaggs five years to complete the follow up to "But Beautiful," a terrific, small-group collection of American songbook classics that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard jazz charts in 2003.

Scaggs aimed to add more instrumental complexity to his next recording, but was sensitive to the pitfalls associated with using a post-Connick, perhaps too-obvious big band.

"I knew I wanted reeds, bass flutes and clarinets," Scaggs says. "I wanted to try to sing with strings, but I didn't want it to sound like generic strings."

He continued tinkering on the songs that would become "Speak Low," out Oct. 28 on Decca. He just couldn't achieve the proper balance of melody and feel, couldn't find a way out of the, well, standard way of doing standards.

Until a walk down a New York side street in the Village, where he chanced upon the Gil Goldstein Septet -- vibes, a string trio, a couple of horns.

"This was the sound I'd been hearing in my head, exactly," Scaggs says. "After the set, we started talking, and it was just a really nice meeting. When we got together around a piano, that was it. We knew."

Together, they crafted a set of carefully drawn moods -- emotionally gripping, rhythmically surprising, sensual rather than ribald in a time when that's its own headline.

It's a role Scaggs has played for decades, from his elemental blues picking during the counterculture 1960s, to a very adult soul that offset those flashy disco days of the 1970s, and on through to these contemporary forays into jazz, amidst the cacophony of hip hop and plastic pop.

Scaggs' voice always keenly blended the sway of early hero Ray Charles with Jimmy Reed's toe-tapping delight. On "Speak Low," he's added in romantic elements of Chet Baker and Johnny Hartman with the delicate yet devastating backbeat of Billie Holiday.

That lithe backing group then provides the kind of sophisticated underpinnings long associated with cool-swinging legends like George Shearing and Gerry Mulligan.

Scaggs, Goldstein and Co. slow down Duke Ellington's more typically mid-tempo "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me," but can still add a satisfying groove to Buddy Johnson's "Save Your Love For Me." "Skylark," the soaring Hoagy Carmichael composition, is appropriately dynamic; Jobim's "Dindi" has childlike grace. Scaggs even pays homage to previous signature phrasings on "I Wish I Knew" (Hartman, on the classic John Coltrane "Ballads" release) and "She Was To Good To Me" (so indelibly interpreted by Baker).

It's a terrific mixture of new notions and familiar places -- and another full-circle return to form for Scaggs.

He made his name beginning in the mid-'70s singing sleek, urbane hits like "Lido Shuffle," "Lowdown," "We're All Alone," "Breakdown Dead Ahead," "Miss Sun" and "Look What You've Done To Me" -- most recorded with a sessions group, featuring keyboardist David Paich (who co-wrote "Lowdown," which won a Grammy that year for best R&B song) and drummer Jeff Pocaro, who would eventually coalesce into the popular band Toto.

But Scaggs was originally a budding guitar hero around the Dallas area as a member of an early, more blues-based version of the Steve Miller Band. Still, he wanted something more.

Dating back to 1972's "My Time," an underrated release that contained the driving minor hit "Dinah Flo," Scaggs had taken to putting down his instrument. He quickly discovered a similar technical reach, and a stirring artistry, through his vocal work.

That's continued after a break for much of the 1980s. Scaggs later made successful returns into both Top 40 soul-pop (1988's "Other Roads," which contained "Heart of Mine") and further back into his roots (1997's recommended groover "Come On Home").

Centered in each of his most memorable musical efforts -- beginning with the blues, then on to blues rock, to rock, to soul-pop, to pop balladry, back to blues, and now to an breezy old-school jazz -- is Scaggs' tenor-baritone. He has always had an ear for the never overly expansive, just-right moment.

"Me, I stick close to the melodies," Scaggs says. "I don't go out and jump off the cliff; I try to find my place inside the tunes."

That place is transformative and new on "Speak Low," another crisp, yet cozy reinvention of the Boz Scaggs aesthetic.

Boz Scaggs launched his career with such R&B-flavored hits as "Lido Shuffle," "Lowdown" and "What Can I Say" -- each sung in his distinctive husky baritone.

But with his new album, "Speak Low," Scaggs extends his run as a jazz crooner, albeit with the same soulfulness that distinguished his earlier recordings. "Speak Low" is his second album of jazz standards; his first, "But Beautiful," came out in 2003 and featured a more tried-and-true selection of songs: "Sophisticated Lady," "What's New?" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered."

Scaggs' current tour -- which includes a run of shows at Jazz Alley Thursday through Nov. 2 -- coincides with Tuesday's release of "Speak Low" (Decca Records), which combines jazz standards with blues songs and ballads. Scaggs describes the album as "a sort of progressive, experimental effort ... along the lines of some of the ideas that Gil Evans explored."

The collection features a sumptuous version of "Invitation," the haunting 1952 ballad by Bronislaw Kaper; "Skylark," the Johnny Mercer-Hoagy Carmichael classic; and the beautiful title track "One Touch of Venus" by Ogden Nash and Kurt Weill (written for their 1943 show).

Though recording albums of jazz standards has been trendy among veteran rock and pop stars with moribund careers, Scaggs brings a rich, old-school soulfulness to a varied collection that features a number of not-so-obvious gems, among them "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" (Frances Landesman and Thomas Wolfe Jr.) and "Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me" (Duke Ellington and Keith Russell).

	Boz Scaggs says his album is a "progressive, experimental effort ... along the lines of some of the ideas that Gil Evans explored."

Born in Ohio and raised in Oklahoma and Texas (where he picked up the boyhood nickname "Bosley," or simply "Boz"), Scaggs began his career in San Francisco in the psychedelic '60s. There, he hooked up with Steve Miller, whom he had met years earlier while attending a private school in Dallas. Scaggs played on Miller's first two albums, "Children of the Future" and "Sailor."

Scaggs' first solo album for Atlantic Records was a poor seller, despite guest musicians Duane Allman and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. But his second album, "Silk Degrees," was a huge hit. Assisting him in the recording studio were a group of musicians who would later form the band Toto.

Adult-contemporary-minded baby boomers, then in their late 20s and early 30s, salivated over the album's silky soulfulness.

"Down Two Then Left" in 1977 didn't do as well as "Silk Degrees," but "Middle Man" in 1980 yielded two hit singles, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo." After that, Scaggs dropped out of sight for eight years before releasing "Other Roads" (and its adult-contemporary hit single, "Heart of Mine") in 1988.

Another semi-retirement from the music business -- aside from operating a nightclub in San Francisco -- ended with "Some Change" in 1994, followed by "Come on Home" (a blues-influenced album) and "My Time" in the late '90s. "Dig," released on Sept. 11, 2001, was lost in the post-9/11 downdraft.

"But Beautiful" represented a natural stylistic progression from the sound that launched his career, but not without some hurtles.

"It opened up a whole new set of challenges for me," Scaggs says of the album on his Web site. "It's sacred ground, as far as I'm concerned, and the more I got into it, the more I realized how little I know."

This bring me to Boz Scaggs, an artist who has quietly worn many hats and has always maintained an impressive level of respect. This is a man who started out as a blues guitarist playing with the Steve Miller Band and was part of one of the all time great cult classics, Sailor. He then released his first solo album which featured the now legendary "Loan Me A Dime." In two short years, William Royce "Boz" Scaggs had worn two hats successfully. One as West Coast psychedelic blues guitarist, the other as a southern soul and R&B singer, thanks to that brilliant Atlantic records debut recorded at the famed Muscle Shoals recording studios.

Add to this resume, one the most beloved records of all time, 1976's Silk Degrees, a soulful light in the dark of disco that featured such hits as the oft-sampled gem "Lowdown," and the rollicking singalong, "Lido Shuffle," and Boz Scaggs has a career trifecta in his first 8 years on the scene.

On his new release, Speak Low, Scaggs revisits the Great American Songbook, 5 years after his #1 jazz album, But Beautiful. What makes Speak Low stand out among other "standards" records is that it doesn't really stand out. It is so sublime, so natural, you never for a minute think of Boz Scaggs' past. You simply get lost in the beauty of the record itself.

Backed by an all-star band that features Gil Goldstein, Scott Colley, Mike Manieri and Alex Acuna, Scaggs delivers this selection of songs with the intense intimacy of a singer who has been living these songs his whole life. Boz credits the musicians for helping him get the sound and feel just right. "We'd try different things and they always landed in a really interesting pocket."

There are few artists who have jumped genres as naturally as Boz Scaggs. While some still think of him as a blues guitarist and others only know "Silk Degrees," I've followed Boz Scaggs for a long time, anticipating each new venture. He hasn't disappointed me yet. "Speak Low" is a noteworthy addition to an already prodigious catalogue.

Boz Scaggs
Speak Low (Decca)

Stuart Munro
October 27, 2008

American standards seem to have become a rest home for aging rockers, and while it might appear that Boz Scaggs has taken up residence - this is his second straight album in the form, following 2003's "But Beautiful" - the singer has suggested in recent interviews that his stay will not be permanent. While he's here, though, he seems to be making the most of it: "But Beautiful" topped the jazz charts, and with his new release he again proves himself an able and careful interpreter of this music while exhibiting a voice that has retained its distinctive velvety rasp even as its timbre has naturally thickened with time. Scaggs renders material from the likes of Rodgers and Hart ("She Was Too Good to Me"), Hoagy Carmichael ("Skylark"), and Duke Ellington ("Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me"), as a series of intimate, moody ballads, with occasional diversions into mid-tempo swing ("Senza Fine") and bossa beat ("Dindi"). His deft, small-combo backing is changed up a bit this time to fine effect, with vibes and clarinet woven in among the sax and piano and, here and there, touches of strings. "Speak Low" is an elegant and striking return visit. (Out tomorrow)

By STEVEN WINE, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Boz Scaggs

“Speak Low” (Decca)

It’s been a long stretch since “Lowdown,” “Lido Shuffle” and “What Can I Say?,” Scaggs’ hits of the mid-’70s, but the years have served him well.  “Speak Low” is his second CD of standards.  And at first glance the immediate image that came to mind was that of yet another aging rock artist seeking resuscitation in the Great American Songbook.  But the first couple of tunes — “Invitation” and “She Was Too Good To Me” - quickly dissuaded me of that notion. This is a set of performances from a guy who places everything he has at the service of the music, not vice versa (as in several other CDs of standards by former rock stars).  Scaggs’ vocals, the warm, reedy quality of his sound, the conversational quality of his phrasing, the innate sense of swing, have a lot more to do with Johnny Mercer than they do with Mick Jagger.  Add to that the superb selection of tunes - ranging from “I’ll Remember April,” “I Wish I Knew” and Mercer’s “Skylark” to “Ballad of the Sad Young Men,” “Dindi” and “Save Your Love For Me” — the Gil Evans-inspired charts by Gil Goldstein, and Bob Sheppard’s fine saxophone work.

October 28, 2008 

By Don Heckman
The International Review Of Music