In 1977,
Eddie Henderson slipped into the clutches of Capitol Records, which didn't have much of a jazz division and predictably didn't know how to showcase its adventurous new trumpeter. First and foremost, they thought they could turn him into a pop/disco star -- and so, that idiot beat turns up on most of the tracks here (the exceptions are pianist
George Cables' thoughtful "Morning Song" and "Beyond Forever," which harken back a bit to the jazzier
Henderson of only a few years before, and a quietly uneventful duet with Cables on "Connie"). The funk band on patrol is stoked with able pros, there are background vocals on a couple of tracks (the female singer is the very young
Dianne Reeves), and
Henderson overdubs his horn on the cliched period brass choruses. But the deadliest element here is the mostly mediocre material that
Henderson has to work with, and thus, his occasionally lost-sounding horn is largely spent on lost causes. Hard to find, which is just as well. ~ Richard S. Ginell