MCA

In the years before the format known as smooth jazz got its fluffy, evil paws on pop instrumental music, bands like The Crusaders made fulfilling records in the crossover mold. Free as the Wind takes gospel, riffy R&B and a funk of the breezier sort, blends it with elements of symphonic soul, and comes up with a goes-down-easy album that maintains grit and character. Joe Sample's Fender Rhodes blends with Wilton Felder's muscular tenor sax and Larry Carlton's tasty guitar work, strings swirl around, and, well, you'll find that you can't help humming along. The differences between this and today's smooth jazz are at once subtle and enormous.

This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2006.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...