Consumer Guide Album

Directions in Music 1969 to 1973 [BGP, 2021]
Sidestepping the vacuous virtuosity and toy funk that were the most egregious turnoffs of the "fusion" that followed in the wake of Miles Davis's 1970 Bitches Brew, which compiler Dean Rutland identifies as the fountainhead of what he chooses to designate "electric jazz," this atmospheric compilation keeps it textural, never coming near the flat-out rock sonics of sometime sideman John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, the abrasive outrages of Davis's own 1976 Agharta, or indeed the blandishments of Weather Report, who epitomized the tendency at its most consistently artful and coherent. So it's to Rutland's credit that were a guest to request some Weather Report, admittedly not a common occurrence around here, this is what I'd play instead. Betty Davis's "Politician Man" provides welcome verbal context. But if you're as allergic to flutes as I am, I suggest deprogramming the closer Rutland assigns to Herbie Hancock, who deserves better. A-