Patrick Lamb is probably best known to Bendites for curating the Jazz at the Oxford concert series for four years running. But Lamb is a saxophonist, singer and songwriter first (probably why he’s a natural fit for the Oxford series) who has toured the world (he was in Europe last month) and released a number of solo albums on his own label.

His latest release, last month’s “Soul Ties,” is aptly named. The album finds Lamb teaming with keyboardist Jeff Lorber, who won his first Grammy Award this year, for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for “Prototype” by The Jeff Lorber Fusion. The two musicians wrote all the compositions presented here with the exception of a funkified take on Wayne Shorter’s “Beauty and the Beast” and the Bill Withers vocal ballad “Whatever Happens” (featuring singer Frank McComb) that closes the album.

Lamb and Lorber bring a funk and R&B edge to the standard smooth-jazz formula on their compositions, helped immensely by a killer rhythm section featuring drummer Lil John Roberts, bassist Alex Al (both known for working with Michael Jackson, among many others) and Tony Maiden (Chaka Kahn). The shifting rhythms on tracks such as “Street Cred” and “Darkroom” give Lamb an expressive canvas on which to emote over. While no song on the album breaks the six-minute mark, the arrangements all beg for extended improvisation in the live setting.

Highlights include “Lines Cross,” an acrobatic saxophone workout that marries hard funk beats to dreamier interludes, culminating in an ascending bridge; and “Operator,” another funk workout that showcases Lamb’s ripping sax solo.

— Brian McElhiney, The Bulletin