THE SUN GODDESS RISES AGAIN...

A few days ago 75 year old jazz piano icon Ramsey Lewis proved he's still got plenty left in the tank -after announcing a revival of his 1974 classic "Sun Goddess", in it's entirety via a nationwide tour later this year.  Ramsey posted a video of his plans...



Here's a little perspective for the uninitiated. In 1973 Lewis, like many jazz musicians at that time, was in the midst of an experimental period; he disbanded his original, hit making acoustic trio (responsible for "The In Crowd" among others) and started working on ways to blend his growing interests in funk and electronic music. Along the way Lewis hooked up with his former drummer, Maurice White, who had just formed a new band, Earth, Wind & Fire, which as we now know, blended jazz and electronic music with funk and R&B. It was a match made in heaven. Lewis and White, who were both living in Chicago, combined forces and the first fruit of their reunion - Sun Goddess, which also featured Earth, Wind and Fire, was released in 1974 and quickly exploded with solar proportion - eventually selling more than a million copies.  Sun Goddess was a bold move is a modest interpretation, Ramsey knew his fans from back in the day would be highly offended by this turn of events, but he did it anyway because this was the dawning of a new day - nothing said that more than the 8 minute length of the title track; Lewis' biggest hits before that (In Crowd Hang On Sloopy Wade in the Water) were no more than 5 min and were acoustic trio settings. And much to the chagrin of the short sighted among his following, the unprecedented success of Sun Goddess meant there was no turning back. In fact, Lewis has always been a forward thinking kinda guy so this shift in his focus during the 1970's makes perfect sense. Ironically, his most recent work has been more like what we remember of the days before Sun Goddess which makes his announcement all the more surprising. Today, Lewis has 80 recordings to his credit and Sun Goddess is by far his most popular and for many, his most memorable. Check out the original recording of Ramsey's opus here.