George Duke ‎– Faces In Reflection

This mastering and cutting is on the warmer side, and with a quite narrow stereo field. Probably very close to the master tape, but the high-res digital mastering offered more clarity and expansiveness. Never the less a good quality pressing at the price. Vinyl is dead dead silent.

'George is humble about his albums and summed it up with statement: "As long as I can play what I want to and make reasonable money to live . . . I am happy. Making a hit isn't important".'

From the cover notes, by Marcia Blackman.

The hits of yesterday are the cliques of today; thanks to George's working philosophy, this joins a stack of material that will never get tired, old, or die, nor join the endless trawl of 'easy money popular classics' record labels resurrect year after year for the zombies. An incredible timeless masterpiece.

One of my favorite for many reasons: no guitar, sax, little vocals, amazingly tight trio, lots of synths and clavs, intense, laid back and funky all in less than 45minutes! Simple of his best 70s albums hands down. The tone-juice he squeezes out of the ARP is damn unreal!

Has anyone seen a Japanese release for this? Catalog #ULS-6048-P

Lovely, warm reissue on 180g. Basic liner notes insert sheet in German/English is a nice addition. Really happy with the reissue of this classic, at times free and soundscape styled LP.

YH!!! One of my fav jazz records. <3 George Duke trio at its freshest and most ambitious. First time he really whipped out the synth and explored its possibilities (thanks to Zappa, who got him both to sing and to play synth, I've read!). Impressive result from a trio, too. Quite diverse record with some solo keys stuff (a more ambient psychedelic track and a almost classical sounding soulful piano piece), some vocal involvement (both lyrical and non-lyrical), some funky jazz fusion bits, and some really fun latin-y stuff with fancy percussion improvisation. Then there's the title composition which to me has a darker prog rock feeling to it, with some non-4/4 beat stuff.

A real journey that never stops mesmerizing, in my experience. It's so clear that the musicians are having real fun when playing together, with both interesting compositions and improvisations.

TT score:
Enjoyability/Variety/Appeal/Originality/Skills=100%
20/18/18/17/20=93%

An amazing record ! Would compare this to BBNG !

What to say about such a timeless album? George Duke's mastery Cosmic Jazz deliverance features a fine selection of Electric Piano & Synth Sounds, and a synergic collaboration of musicians including Leon Ndugu Chancler on Drums & John Heard on Bass. As a Laurent Garnier once said, "an album is not just a aleatory selection of tunes; it has a history inside, as a whole". Every single thing from this man released on MPS/BASF is worthy of a careful, deep listening. You're firmly advised.