Reachin’

Perhaps the only deep cut left off of Nate Patrin’s otherwise exhaustive guide to the Mizell Brothers, Roger Glenn’s 1976 album Reachin’ is often an outlier. In skimming the cream of the brothers’ awesome ’70s run, other Mizell compilations often wind up excluding Glenn as well. But as session flautist and vibraphonist for Donald Byrd’s Street Lady and Johnny Hammond’s Gears, Glenn was an integral cog of the Mizell’s sound, flying high across their charts on those classics (that might even be him in the plane on the cover of Places and Spaces, as Glenn was a licensed pilot).

From the murmuration of blackbirds on the cover to Glenn in a cockpit on the back cover, flight is a theme, even if the grooves root down. Featuring a stripped-down sound, with Larry Mizell’s ARP work at the fore, Glenn leans heavily into hectic Latin rhythms (“Rio”), vaseline-lensed R&B (“Gloria”), and slinky Blaxploitation grooves (“Kick”), nudging the Mizells’ template just a bit further out than on their better-known productions. Closer “Rezo Chango” strips it all back to a Cuban drum circle chant. But this would prove to be Glenn’s lone album, a lovely solo flight.