SPACES

This album is one of the granddaddies of the jazz rock fusion world. While Miles Davis may be credited for popularizing fusion with the jazz crowd, it was artists like Larry Coryell (here with the help of other future fusion giants John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Miroslav Vitous and Chick Corea) who shaped it into the powerful form it took in the early seventies with bands like Return To Forever and The Mahavishnu Orchestra.

While the music here is still much closer to jazz than rock, you can hear the beginnings of what was to come. And the performances on this album are just spectacular. Coryell and McLaughlin play rings around each other on most of the songs, with Vitous on acoustic bass, sometimes bowed, and sometimes almost getting an electric bass-like sound.

Chick Corea only appears on one track (Chris), but no matter, the band on this album is so great that really don't need him on the rest of the album.

A super cool album.