Ramsey Lewis - Sun Goddess
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CD Details
Artist: Ramsey LewisEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2008-02-01
Music Label: Sbme Special Mkts.
Soundtracks:
- Sun Goddess
- Living for the City
- Love Song
- Jungle Strut
- Hot Dawgit
- Tambura
- Gemini Rising
Music reviews of Sun Goddess
Music Review: Taken Out Two,Gotta Give It Five
Rating: 5 Stars
In terms of how it functioned in the sense of Ramsey's electric funk musical period this is a very important album and when it reaches it's true flower,this really is a united funk spectacle to behold. Musicians such as Maurice White and EWF along with Cleveland Eaton,Charles Stepney and Teo Macero (as a producer) were onboard with Ramsey,himself having already been HEAVILY in the groove on his previous album Funky Serenity was ready to forge ahead with this. Well needless to say the title song could easily plow into anything on just about any album. Between the EWF rhythm section alone,especially Johnny Graham's chunky rhythm guitar that stays on the one for all 8+ minutes of the song,along with Ramsey's different keyboard solo's this is just about the most obviously vital examples of the most spiritually expressive variety of funk/jazz and once Philip Bailey's chant comes in......well you just know your in for a treat. In fact this could've easily been a 18-20 minute sidelong number and continued to go invent itself however,part of the intent on this album was crossover. Now the two elements I mentioned in my review title comes from two songs that...well they could've been great. Covering Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City" was a wonderful idea for a player like Ramsey Lewis. The sad truth is though that the horn and string arrangements by Richard Evans are....plain destestible on this song and are weak beyond the point of easy listening. It's clear there's a need an attempt to make them psychedelic and surreal but instead it just tramples badly on and on over Ramsey's very good and often wah-wah like rhodes solos. I just cannot really say a whole lot for what happens with "Love Songs". The melody would be a great soul jazz jam but...somehow it ends up in the silliest cocktail lounge arrangement-the same corney orchestrations tend to be the main situation here. But where these two production missteps might mess up the rest of the album for some people it doesn't do so for me. "Jungle Strut" is really deep heavy funk with tons of echoey growls and this great slow burning groove and "Hot Dawgit" brings EWF all back into the equation on a song that really brings out the blues in funk very heavy with it's heavy use of bars and such.Also,it's a joy to hear. Both the wah-wah and the strong afrocentric flavors of funk come to the front on "Tambura",the one cut here that has more of a feel of the previous album considering it's raw production style. "Gemini Rising" concludes the album with the albums heavier nod to jazz as it spins in and out from an upbeat latin jazz romp to this soul jazz jam. Despite two very serious missteps in arrangements on two of the songs here that doesn't take much away from the greatness of the overall album which,as it turns out is really great from a musical perspective.
Description of Sun Goddess
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