Customer Reviews

Legends of Acid Jazz

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The Legends of Acid Jazz series reissued a lot of albums that have long been out of print. Recorded on the Prestige label, the group(s) featured on this Leon Spencer compilation include Melvin Sparks (guitar), and Idris Mohammed (drums). Both these musicians have albums of their own in the same series. Each of these volumes include two original lp's from the late 60's to mid-70's. In this case, as is most often the case with the Legends of Acid Jazz releases, the first album is better than the second. Still, both have great beats, good soloing, and feature generally inspired playing. The lay out of this series is awful. Cartoonish and tacky, whoever put the graphics together should have used the original album covers. The title of this series should be changed as well. If one didn't know what one was looking at, this would seem like a risky purchase.

If you love the Hammond organ, you will love Leon Spencer. This disc gives you your money's worth of great Hammond playing. The "Acid Jazz" monicker doesn't exactly fit - there's no modern hip hop beat behind this authentic 70's jazz/funk B3 player, just the real deal. Close to You has a Charles Earland feel, others have a funky soul feel with plenty of jazz solos and arrangements with a killer band.

Leon had a short recording career but recorded at least 4 Prestige dates: here we have "Sneak Preview" from 1970, his 1st solo outing and "Louisiana Slim" from 1971. The band is the same on both dates:Leon Spencer Organ, Virgil Jones Trumpet, Grover Washington Tenor,Flute (#10), Melvin Sparks Guitar, Idris Muhammad Drums, Buddy Caldwell Conga. I prefer Louisiana Slim the 2nd recording which I paid large money for a Japanese reissue for just to have a 24 bit remaster of Mercy Mercy Me on here, and there is an especially biting biting remake of close to you that Sparks twists wonderfully. This is organ/soul/guitar based jazz at its best if you like the house band above and who doesn't you cant go wrong.It seems an interesting time for prestige producing all these similar organ funk records some better than others including this one with really creative runs by Leon it is surprising he stopped recording after about '73, but continued working in Houston.