"Light of Worlds"

I purchased this album in November 1974. It is one of the best R & B albums ever! During this era of their careers they were playing serious R&B with a Jazz overtone. The title track is unbelievable. "Summer Madness" is a standard. In fact it was recently used in the movie "Baby Boy". However, this track did not make it to the soundtrack. We used to do the "Bump" to "Higher Plane". I was a sophomore in high school when this came out. "Light of Worlds" brings back many fond memories.

Kool & The Gang On A Higher Plane!

Musically this has to be one of Kool & The Gang's strongest

overall peformances as a band!On "Street Corner Symphony","Rhyme

Tyme People" and "Higher Plane" the band stretch out into some

kind of unreachably funky place-blasting horns and all!On

"Fruitman" and "Whiting H & G" they look to a more vintage soul

direction saddled with meaningful lyrics (the former nodding to vegetarianism) while "Summer Madness" is simply unbelievable,as

is the brilliant title song-building to a climax of funky spirituality.This is a deep record-not only in terms of the music

but the lyrical content and maintains a strong connection to the

person on the street-speaking to K&TG's ever evolving ability to

communicate with it's audiance.

If this album has one minor flaw it's that of every

single pre JT Taylor Kool set released-the band members are very

weak as vocal soloists and only seem to work well in ensamble

situations,which is what they often do.But that little gaffe aside 'Light Of Worlds' is an essencial part of what writer

Ricky Vincent refers to as the 'united funk era',when bands could

both produce popular songs that had alot of meaning.And I don't

think the genre of funk,fusion or soul in general has had as much

bubbling under the surface since these times.Hard to believe it's

true-this is a gold nugget of an era showerd with them!

Slammin Set

forget about the Cross-Over Era&though there was nothing wrong with that fully in hindsight the Real Rawness of what Made Kool&The Gang so Tight in the first place is found here."Summer Maddness" is the Cut that Every Summer you had to have on Blast.before they got all SMoothed out they were bringing a strong Funk&Jazz Fusion that got the eye of alot of ears&eye's on there brand of Grooves.this is a Somoking set.