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Apr 18, 2023 Web Exclusive By Matthew Berlyant

The latest installment in Craft Recordings’ vaunted Jazz Dispensary series puts a special focus on ’70s jazz-funk when fusion and soul/R’n’B broke open how jazz would sound from that point forward and what influences were permissible and whatnot, even for older, more established musicians who were unafraid to keep pushing their music forward.

Have you ever heard Cannonball Adderley get downright nastily funky on “Phases?” Flora Purim’s hypnotic and insanely synth-crazed “Silver Swords?” Or McCoy Tyner’s Arabic motif in the beautiful and haunting “Desert Cry?” Gene Ammons’ take on “Strange Fruit” with (among others) Ron Carter on bass, all produced by Ozzie Cedena (Dez’s father) and recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, home of so many other jazz classics? Me neither until this compilation. Or Barbara Lewis’ set-closing “Windmills of Your Mind?” Whatever the answer is, you are in for an absolute treat. (www.jazzdispensary.com)

Author rating: 8.5/10