Jordan has often been seen as the acceptable face of smooth jazz. I guess Off The Record comes from the other side of the face, then. Like in the bad old pop days of the late 1980s, there are almost as many producers deployed as there are musicians, although Lee Stone gets to do more than anyone else. We can also savour the decidedly mixed blessing of vocal interjections from Love-Child on a couple of tracks, plus vocal exhortations ("oh yeah!", "uh-huh?!", "mmm") on otherwise ho-hum instrumental tracks where Jordan sounds like Wes Montgomery practising musical shorthand. Most of the melodies barely rise above two-bar riffs, endlessly repeated. Vocalist Fay Simpson contributes well-judged and expressive vocals to "Keep Your Head Up", a song with a four-bar melody. The whole point of the record seems to be the soul-laced rhythm groove upon which Jordan drapes his minimalist arrangements, but the producers have gone for an identikit sound that it is of passing interest only. Production values are high, but content is optional. Style and substance are ships in the night, off the record. --Keith Shadwick