Ulf Meyer & Martin Wind, featuring Billy Test and Alex Riel - Time will Tell: expressive musical testimony of a supergroup. Some supergroups arise out of pure calculation - others out of sheer coincidence or happy coincidence. The latter proves the quartet around Ulf Meyer (guitar), Martin Wind (double bass), Alex Riel (drums) and Billy Test (piano/organ/Fender Rhodes). Their album "Time Will Tell" is a musical and mental self-reflection worth listening to, presented in nine tasteful compositions - from easygoing swing numbers to intense, emotional blues ballads.
The second collection covering hit singles from the '70s top funk and soul band, Earth, Wind & Fire. This anthology has recently been supplanted by a box set covering virtually all of their big Columbia singles and some early Warners material. If you enjoyed their disco and late '70s cuts more than the early tracks, this anthology is worth getting.
As phenomenally popular as Earth, Wind & Fire was from the mid-'70s to the early '80s, it's easy to forget that the band was hardly an overnight success. With Head to the Sky – EWF's fourth album overall, second with Philip Bailey, and second for Columbia – Maurice White's very spiritual and ambitious brand of soul and funk was starting to pay off commercially. The Latin-influenced "Evil" became the soulsters' biggest hit up to that point, and material ranging from the hauntingly pretty title song (which boasts one of Bailey's finest performances ever) to the jazz fusion gem "Zanzibar" is just as rewarding. The lineup White unveiled with Last Days and Time was working out beautifully; Bailey was clearly proving to be a major asset. Also worth noting is the presence of singer Jessica Cleaves, who left after this album and, several years later, resurfaced in George Clinton's eccentric female group the Brides of Funkenstein.