Sun Goddess

After spending the Sixties making acoustic trio music (and having hit records in the process), pianist Ramsey Lewis shifted toward funk and fusion in the ’70s. On this 1974 album he reunited with his former drummer, one Maurice White, then leading the titanically successful Earth, Wind & Fire. Several EW&F members, including White, his bassist brother Verdine, saxophonist Don Myrick, and vocalist Philip Bailey appear on Sun Goddess, making it a brilliant cross between that band’s slick, jazzy funk and the keyboard-centered grooves of Lewis’s material.

The mood on this 1974 set from pianist Ramsey Lewis is smooth, refined, and futuristic jazz and funk, with Lewis, who previously had worked in a more traditional supper club jazz idiom, incorporating ARP and ARP String Ensemble synths, along with Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, under the influence of producer and arranger Charles Stepney. Made with members of Earth, Wind & Fire and featuring Phillip Bailey’s vocals on the opening track, it’s a jazz album but one with R’n’B, funk, and soul very much to the fore, with almost all the tracks underpinned by tight, in-the-pocket funk grooves. Tracks like “Jungle Strut” with its distinctive ARP riff, lolloping, sliding bassline and surreal vocals buried in the mix, and “Tambura”’s gnarly synth bass and impressively intricate mix of wah wah guitar, clavinet, electric piano, horns and percussion fitting together like a sonic jigsaw, both sound remarkably contemporary. One of Lewis’ best, Sun Goddess delivers seven tracks of gently simmering, blissed-out, future-facing and cross-pollinated jazz funk.