Eddie Russ: "See The Light"

This is a severely underrated LP.  Eddie Russ is a jazz keyboardist with an inclination towards the heavy funk, and on this album more than any other, his ambition and influences coalesce into a Herbie Hancock- or George Duke-level jazz-funk-synth masterpiece.  Beginning with a cover of Earth, Wind & Fire’s classic “See The Light,” Russ springboards from there and doesn’t let up, grooving in an uptempo funk-fusion mode that almost borders on disco at points, but not in a bad way.  My personal favorite track here is the slinky, laid-back, almost P-Funk-esque “Poko Nose”—by far the hardest funk groove on the record—and I also love the breezy, melodic “Tomorrow Is Another Day” and the Latin-infused “Zaius.”  Eddie Russ gets wild tones out of his keyboards on every tune, and offers up a versatility and experimentalism often associated exclusively with the widely-recognized “greats” of the instrument.  This music elevates Russ to pantheon status, and puts him in the company of the aforementioned Hancock and Duke, as well as such heralded electronic funk pioneers as Lonnie Liston Smith and Bernie Worrell.  Find this.