Six must-hear Burt Conrad original compositions combined with six sizzling renditions of classic jazz standards give rise to one unforgettable album, Forward Looking Backwards. This disc features jazz classics like Stanley Turrentine’s “Sugar” and blues standards like “Born Under A Bad Sign”. Older songs and new compositions mix and mingle like bubbles in a champagne flute, flowing effortlessly into Burt’s original compositions like the Conrad penned bossa nova “Take My Hand” featuring Brazilian songbird Raquel Lima. For many, it’s the opening track, “5 To 4”, a blazing smooth jazz original with Burt Conrad blowing a Miles Davis trumpet on his guitar synthesizer.
Burt Conrad All Stars consist of Burt Conrad on vocals, guitars and keyboards, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums, Pete Cummings on bass, E.J. “The Professor” on vocals and keyboards, Nelson Rodriquez on percussion, Debbie Willis, Jeanne Westendorf, Brenda Darlene and Doris Jackson on background vocals, Raquel Lima on vocals and whistle on Take My Hand and Bryan Douglas on piano on Travel Mercies. Produced, arranged and mixed by Burt Conrad at Toad Hill Sound Studios