DATE: Wednesday, November 19, 1997          TAG: 9711190058

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARVIN LAKE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  111 lines

SINGER'S MUSICAL VARIETY PLEASES FANS OF BOTH JAZZ AND R&B

``WHO WOULD I like to sound like if I could sound like anyone?'' Will Downing asked, repeating the question that has just been put to him.

``Well, I'd have to give you two names,'' he answered. ``Nat `King' Cole and Donny Hathaway. Nat had a beauty about his voice the likes of which I've never heard. Phrasing. I mean, impeccable. . . . He never screamed on anything. He would just stand there and sing.''

``Donny, 'cause I've never heard anyone who touched me the way he did when he sang. When he sings, you feel it. And I have always wanted to have that emotion.''

Downing, his fans would say, possesses both Cole's relaxed phrasing and Hathaway's passion. During a 10-year recording career, the Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter's rich baritone stylings have won him critical acclaim and a loyal following.

``Will continues to have one of the most inviting voices in the urban adult arena,'' A. Scott Galloway, music editor of Urban Network, wrote recently.

Fans of Downing, who will perform at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Marriott Hotel Norfolk, fall into two basic camps: those who like his contemporary jazz tunes and those who appreciate his R&B/pop tracks. That's because Downing will record a cover of Natalie Cole's ``Inseparable'' and follow that with a vocal reading of the John Coltrane classic ``A Love Supreme'' or ``Stella by Starlight.''

``There are different aspects to me musically, and I try to explore each and every one, but not to the point where the albums are so diversified that you can't enjoy them,'' Downing said.

For his newest and sixth solo album, ``Invitation Only,'' Downing tapped some younger producers and was admittedly picky about the tunes. Several top-flight musicians and singers - including the Yellowjackets; drummer Harvey Mason; saxophonist Kirk Whalum; guitarists Norman Brown and Jonathan Butler; pianist Alex Bugnon; and vocalists Marva King, Fonzi Thornton, and Cindy Mizelle - are featured. Downing co-wrote seven of the 12 tracks.

``I think we put together a project that the people who have already been buying my records still can listen to and go, `Yeah, that's classic Will.' And I think we bring a whole lot of new people into the fold. Which keeps me young. Keeps the record company interested in what I'm doing. And sells more records, which ultimately, from their standpoint, is the main focus.''

The album's first single, the up-tempo ``All About You,'' was produced by Daryl Simmons, who has worked with Boyz II Men, Toni Braxton and Aretha Franklin.

Downing hopes that that track and the self-penned ``Personal'' (a duet with vocalist Tanya ``Tan'' Smith) will appeal to R&B fans. On the other hand, ``When Sunny Gets Blue'' helps him hold on to his contemporary jazz-pop fans.

With ``Invitation Only,'' Downing envisioned throwing a musical party and inviting his musician friends and those he has admired over the years. Missing - but present, in a way - is the late saxophonist Art Porter, Downing's touring partner who died earlier this year in a boating accident. The CD is dedicated to Porter.

``Before We Say Goodbye,'' which Downing and Porter recorded on an earlier Porter CD, is redone. The two had agreed to re-record the tune, but then Porter died.

``So what we did,'' Downing said, ``we kept Art's solos and we kinda like worked everything around him. . . . That was our way of saying goodbye to our friend and yet still having him there.''

Downing's new CD also features a cover of the '70s classic ``I Don't Want to Lose You'' popularized by the late Phyllis Hyman, for whom Downing opened several times. Hyman committed suicide in 1995 because, friends say, she felt that younger performers like Toni Braxton and Anita Baker had eclipsed her without having paid their dues.

``In one regard, she's right, and in another regard, she's wrong,'' Downing said. ``People did appreciate her. I mean, she had her time. . . .

``There was a time you'd turn your TV on, you'd open up a magazine, you know, or whatever, and you'd see her. She did Broadway. She did some amazing things, and her time passed.''

Downing grew up in Brooklyn. His mother taught school, and his father was an airport skycap. They wanted him to be ``everything but a musician,'' Downing recalled. ``Because of the stigma that comes with being a musician. The unsteadiness of financing, the drug element, being promiscuous . . . all the things I'm not. But everyone's got to follow their own dream.''

Downing's involvement with music began in junior high school, where he sang in the school chorus. ``It was one of those mandatory things,'' he said.

His interests deepened when he attended Erasmus Performing Arts High School. Many of the students were heavily into classical music, intent on attending Juiliard and other prestigious musical insti-tutions.

``Me, I was like a kid from Brooklyn who really wanted to play ball,'' Downing recalled. ``I didn't want to learn to read music and all that sort of stuff. But it was all part of the criteria.''

The teachers ``were like, maybe you can sing opera. They were steering you in this direction, that direction. Maybe you can teach. I knew I didn't want to teach, but I also didn't know what I wanted to do. I was just kind off there having fun, going through the motions.''

One day a group of student who had formed a jazz band approached Downing about doing a gig with them. ``Hey man, we'll do some Al Jarreau stuff,'' Downing recalled them saying. He was deep into Jarreau's music at the time.

Later, Downing and the group starting writing tunes. They even made a demo record and mailed it to radio stations and record companies.

``No one picked up on it, but it got into the hands of people who needed singers or musicians,'' said Downing, who began picking up $50, $100 or more for session work.

He enrolled as a music major at Virginia Union University in Richmond - ``my grades wouldn't allow me to go anywhere else, and they gave me a partial scholarship'' - but left after a year, lured back to New York by constant offers of session work and his friends' talk of record deals.

``And I never turned back,'' he said.

Next up, Downing will record an album of standards.

``It'll probably be me and an instrumentalist,'' he said. ``He's going to bring about four or five things to the table, and I'm going to bring four or five, and we're going to make this project almost like a (Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane) re-enactment.''

The album should be out next September. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

Will Downing envisions his latest album as a party for friends.

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