Earth, Wind & Fire

A dream last week: I was walking through a crowded marketplace in a city that seemed to
be Paris although I've never been there. I was singing to myself and everyone I passed was
singing the same song, softly to themselves. It was "The World's a Masquerade" from the
Earth, Wind & Fire album, especially the repeated final lines, "The world's a masquerade/ Can
the whole world be lying?" I thought to myself, "That must be a very popular son... More >

In the beginning Maurice White created Hummit Music. But not until the morning of the fourth album did he come up with a tune to match, complete with sweet clear harmonies and sinuous beat. Catchy title, too: "Evil," to be dispersed by prayer. Most of the first side keeps up the good work, although only rarely--as on the falsetto climax of "Keep Your Head to the Sky"--is it quite as transcendent physically as the lyrics would seem to demand. But the mood jazz excursion on side two exposes White's essential fatuousness. "Zanzibar," it's called, as befits a travelogue; its saxophone solo (by Ronnie Laws's replacement, Andrew Woolfolks) could make Alice Coltrane blush. (Grade: B-)