Eric Marienthal Street Dance 199

During an era when the word "fusion" was applied to any mixture of jazz with pop or funk, Chick Corea's Elektric Band reinforced the word's original meaning: a combination of jazz improvisations with the power, rhythms and sound of rock. Eye of the Beholder, which found guitarist Frank Gambale, saxophonist Eric Marienthal and bassist John Patitucci displaying increasingly original solo voices, is one of this group's finest recordings and ranks with the best fusion of the latter half of the 1980s.

We have all been in situations where we have brought up the subject of the music we love only to be asked ‘what’s smooth jazz?’ It is a question not always easy to answer and one that forms the motivation for this occasional feature unremarkably called ‘What’s Smooth Jazz?’ Designed to illustrate some of the most definitive examples of the genre, it has, up until this point, always concentrated on specific tracks. However, with the recent release of Brian Culbertson’s ‘Live From The Inside’ there is now an entire album that can be used to demonstrate how perfect smooth jazz is meant to sound.