October Comes Too Soon is an 8-song collection of songs that largely find Gina musing on the nexus between what makes great friendships work between men and women, and the x-factor that looms over the possibilities for the deeper intimacy of love. The album opens with the inviting “A Simple Man” which extolls the fundamental gentleman qualities that set her heart ablaze.
There’s the breezy Latin-tinged “Forever in a Row,” inspired by a friend’s phrase that poetically extends the virtues of true-blue-pal-dome into something beyond infinity. Both songs feature keyboard solos by longtime collaborator John Beasley (Miles Davis, Steely Dan, Dianne Reeves) whose dreamy touch has been a constant on Gina’s recordings.
The album’s initial emphasis track for radio is the watercolor wee hours vibe “The Threat of Love,” a song inspired by a man who has been both a spiritual guru and an enigmatic Adonis for our heroine…thus the song’s intriguing title: the “threat” being battling back the forbidden. At the opposite end of the thematic and musical spectrum is the heavy backbeat and horns funk jam “Love Game” which, via the presence of certain synthesizer textures, is a dead giveaway for its `80s origins – a dancefloor ready throwback of jazzy and flirty proportions that features her titan bottom team of bassist Benjamin Shepherd, drummer Joel Taylor and second keyboardist Nicholas Semrad (rockin’ some mean clavinet here).
