VENUSIAN SUMMER

Lenny White's debut solo album injects hot, sleazy funk into a sizzling jazz fusion context. It's not quite as polished, cutting-edge, or packed with surprises as, say, Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi albums - or even Hancock's more commercial Head Hunters offerings - but it's a solid listen which vividly evokes its era. You'd never mistake this for music from even a few years earlier or later; it reeks of the mid-1970s so distinctively that if you play it for too long you end up with Gerald Ford in the White House and gas shortages at the pumps. Play when you want accessible jazz fusion which could serve as a porn soundtrack and don't mind if it's a little dated.