''Elixir'' is the third studio album by

Fourplay Fourplay (stylized as fOURPLAY) is a contemporary American smooth jazz quartet. The original members of the group were Bob James (keyboards), Lee Ritenour (guitars), Nathan East (bass), and Harvey Mason (drums). In 1997, Lee Ritenour left the ...

, released in 1995. Among the guest vocalists on this album are

Phil Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and lead singer of the rock band Genesis and also has a career as a solo performer. Between 1982 and ...

Patti Austin Patti Austin (born August 10, 1950) is an American R&B, pop, and jazz singer and songwriter. Music career Austin was born in Harlem, New York, to Gordon Austin, a jazz trombonist. She was raised in Bay Shore, New York on Long Island. Quincy ...

, and

Peabo Bryson Robert Peapo "Peabo" Bryson (born April 13, 1951) is an American singer and songwriter. He is known for singing soul ballads (often as a duet with female singers) including the 1983 hit "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love" with Roberta Flack. Bryson ...

Track listing

Personnel

Fourplay * Bob James – Yamaha C7 MIDI grand piano, keyboards, synthesizers, programming, synthesizer orchestrations, arrangements (4, 8) *

Lee Ritenour Lee Mack Ritenour ( ; born January 11, 1952) is an American jazz guitarist who has been active since the late 1960s. Biography Ritenour was born on January 11, 1952, in Los Angeles, California, United States. At the age of eight he started play ...

– electric guitars,

classical guitar The classical guitar (also known as the nylon-string guitar or Spanish guitar) is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor o ...

guitar synthesizer A guitar synthesizer is any one of a number of musical instrument systems that allow a guitarist to access synthesizer capabilities. Overview Today's guitar synths are direct descendants of 1970s devices from manufacturers (often in partner ...

, additional synthesizer and computer programming, arrangements (3) *

Nathan East Nathan Harrell East (born December 8, 1955) is an American jazz, R&B, and rock bass player and vocalist. With more than 2,000 recordings, East is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of music. East holds a Bachelor of Arts degr ...

– 5 and 6-string bass guitars,

fretless bass A fretless bass is a bass guitar whose neck does not have any frets. While the instrument is played in all styles of music, it is most common in pop, rock, and jazz. It first saw widespread use during the 1970s, although some players used them befo ...

, vocals (5, 9), vocal arrangements (8), arrangements (8), scat (9) *

Harvey Mason Harvey William Mason (born February 22, 1947) is an American jazz drummer, record producer, and member of the band Fourplay. Mason, who attended Berklee in the 1960s, received an Honorary Doctorate at Berklee's 2015 Commencement Ceremony for ...

– drums, percussion,

bongos Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...

marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

, Jew's harp, arrangements (8) Additional Musicians *

Harvey Mason, Jr. Harvey Jay Mason Jr. (born June 3, 1968) is an American record producer, songwriter, movie producer and current CEO of The Recording Academy. He has written and produced songs for artists including Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Deniece Wil ...

– synthesizer and computer programming, vocal arrangements (11) * Ken Freeman – additional synthesizer and computer programming *

– vocals (4) *

– vocals (8) *

– vocals (8) * Vern Arnold – backing vocals (11) * Cisco – backing vocals (11) * Heather Mason – backing vocals (11)

Production

* Fourplay – producers * Bob James – executive producer * Nathan East – vocal producer (8) * Don Murray – recording, mixing * Thom Kidd – additional recording * Harvey Mason, Jr. – additional recording * Lee Ritenour – additional recording * Mike Kloster – assistant engineer * Kevin Lively – assistant engineer * Robert Vosgien – digital editing * Wally Traugott – mastering * Linda Cobb – art direction, design * James Minchin – photography Studios * Recorded at

Sunset Sound Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...

(Hollywood, CA); Masong Studios (Los Angeles, CA); Starlight Studios (Malibu, CA); DARP Studios (Atlanta, GA); Remidi Studios (Ardsley-On-Hudson, NY). * Edited at CMS Digital (Pasadena, CA). * Mastered at Capitol Mastering (Hollywood, CA).

Reception

References

{{Authority control 1994 albums Fourplay albums Warner Records albums