James Hardway (born David Harrow) cut his teeth on London's nascent jungle scene in the mid-'90s, but he soon moved beyond the high-speed breakbeat ghetto and started exploring jazz, Cuban, reggae, and downtempo territories. Now based in southern California, his sound has evolved over the course of nine albums to include all of those elements along with hip-hop, house, and funk. Over Easy shows off the brilliant end result of all those years of promiscuous genre-blending. It consists entirely of music played and sung by live musicians -- a roster that includes legendary drummer Keith LeBlanc, bassist Cordovan, and a shifting array of singers and rappers, along with Hardway's own keyboards, percussion, guitar, and woodwinds. The album maintains a consistently high quality throughout, but highlight tracks include "Keep the Flow" (featuring the husband-and-wife team of singer D Booker and rapper Krishna Booker) and the album's opening track, the slow and churningly funky "This Life." Strongly recommended to all fans of progressive funk and hip-hop. ~ Rick Anderson, All Music Guide
