Magic Journey

Yes, it’s uneven. Yes, it’s kitschy. Yes, there is an absolutely irritating cover of cornball ’50s novelty song “Short Shorts.” But at its most dizzying, bigger-than-big-band heights, the third Salsoul Orchestra album is difficult to top for disco bombast. Opener “It’s a New Day” might be upbeat enough to cause hazardous blood sugar levels, but its hey everybody let’s have a good time energy rivals that of the most beloved Broadway musical showstoppers. The marching band-gone-supernova run-through of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Getaway” is a killer, too — proof positive that you can positively drown a classic funk jam in sea-of-brass orchestration as long as you make sure the beat remains unstoppable. And the full-throttle symphonic thrust of its loose-concept three-fer end run — the Stravinsky-meets-honky-tonk “Magic Bird of Fire,” the massive luxury-starship grandiosity of “Journey to Phoebus,” and the rhinestone-constellation glimmer of “Alpha Centuri” — conjures up an alternate universe where Vincent Montana Jr. got the Close Encounters and Star Wars gigs that went to John Williams in ours. But nothing beats “Runaway”: they hit the jackpot with Loleatta Holloway’s voice at full flight delivering a crystalline vision of romantic ambivalence and the orchestra dialed back just enough to sound more like Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band than the Studio 54 Philharmonic — albeit blessed with a great string section and an extended vibraphone solo that’d do Lionel Hampton proud.