Free as the Wind (1976) more music like this

by The Crusaders

There's a terrific reason why the triple-CD Crusaders retrospective The Golden Years included six of Free as the Wind's eight tracks -- the material. Indeed, side one of the LP version may be the strongest single side of original tunes that the band ever put together. It opens with Joe Sample's driving, tense title cut, and flows flawlessly ...

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Soul to Souls (2006) more music like this

by Nelson Rangell

Pop-jazz reedsman Nelson Rangell returns with the amiable Soul to Souls, an album evenly split between familiar covers and originals. The standards, including "A Night in Tunisia," Earl Klugh's "Vonetta," and Joe Sample's "Free as the Wind," are mostly pleasant but uninspired; the exception is a lovely recasting of Stevie Wonder's "Send One Your ...

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Sample This (1997) more music like this

by Joe Sample

In case anyone has forgotten how ingratiating and prolific Joe Sample the songwriter has been, the master of elegant funk re-records 14 songs here. And it is a cooler, more reflective light in which Sample and producer George Duke see his old tunes in the '90s: with relaxed, uncomplicated, to-the-point acoustic piano leads; a mildly percolating ...

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Groove Crusade (2003) more music like this

by The Crusaders

Groove Crusade is a smoking little sampling of the Crusaders recordings from 1970-1979. It is a compilation of tunes assembled from the beginning of the period where they dropped the word "Jazz" from the front of their name as a reaction to the harsh words the band received from jazz critics throughout the 1960s. Long before the tracks on this ...

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The Crusaders' Finest Hour (2000) more music like this

by The Crusaders

After a career that spanned the '60s with a number of releases on Pacific Jazz records as the Jazz Crusaders, the beginning of the '70s found the band dropping the jazz moniker from their name and moving toward the more commercially accessible pop/R&B crossover audience. These nine selections are taken from seven albums originally released on the ...

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Way Back Home (1996) more music like this

by The Crusaders

The music on this four-CD box set is mostly excellent, and this is not a bad sampler of the recordings of the (Jazz) Crusaders, but there are some problems. The 1961-70 group is covered much too quickly in the first disc, and the last two discs jump around chronologically throughout the '70s. The lack of recording dates is rather inexcusable, and ...

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The Golden Years (1992) more music like this

by The Crusaders

Issued in 1992, the first of GRP's Crusaders boxes deliberately limits its reach to a 20-year stretch, stopping just before the crucial departure of drummer Stix Hooper -- hence the arguably apt title The Golden Years. The three discs occasionally give us a good idea of the band's evolution from a fine Texas bop outfit to the soulful ...

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Gold (2007) more music like this

by The Crusaders

For listeners willing to overlook the fact that this Crusaders retrospective begins the story in 1970 -- nine years after the combo began recording excellent hard bop and soul-jazz -- the two-disc set Gold is just as good and nearly as thorough as the 1996 four-disc box Way Back Home. (Since the running time is only 17 seconds shy of 160 minutes, ...

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