Chain Reaction
THE CRUSADERS
(Blue Thumb)

There actually was a time when crossover jazz didn't automatically suck. In the '70s, well before the term "smooth jazz" was coined, The Crusaders made a series of funky instrumental albums that — although smooth in their own way — really brought the funk and the spunk. A tenor sax/trombone frontline complements Joe Sample's keyboards; Stix Hooper's drumming carries a sense of easygoing propulsion. The tunes are grabby, the solos solid — what happened in the three decades hence?

This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2007.

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...