TRIBUTE TO EARTH, WIND AND FIRE (AS THE LENNY WHITE PROJECT)

Lenny's debut album "Venusian Summer" was extremely great release, but very soon he switched to commercial funk-jazz and I loosed any interest to his solo works (his collaborations with other musicians almost always showed his excellent level of musicianship though).

Many years have gone and Lenny returned with his "Lenny White Project" - all-stars team with bassist Ron Carter,excellent guitarist Bireli Lagrene and Patrice Rushen on piano,besides of himself. The only release of this project was recorded in Japan in 1998 and released in 2000 (Japan release only). It's a shame that this work for years was almost unnoticed in Europe and US.

First of all, musical material is of excellent quality - well-known r'n'b/jazz super-band Ears Wind and Fire compositions!But even more important - all them are played by acoustic post-bop super quartet!Everyone familiar with EW&F music knows how great they were at the beginning of their career and even when turned to more commercial direction later they still were excellent songwriters.

There on Lenny's tribute their well-known compositions gave a birth to fantastic music,full of acoustic guitar, piano, relaxed jazzy drums,deep bass groove and slight Latin scent in a moments. I expect rare listener could imagine how different and great these tunes can sound (when played by excellent acoustic jazz quartet).

Vanessa Rubin sings on one song (other are just instrumentals) and Wallace and Antoine Roney add their reeds arrangements in some places as guest musicians.But in general, this release is highest class musical material reworked by excellent musicians in a key of accessible and very enjoyable post-bop, removing even traces of disco influences of original versions.

My rating is 3,5, rounded to 4.