Gato Barbieri

I like this better than the well-reviewed Latin America: Chapter 1 (on Impulse) because I prefer Lonnie Liston Smith and Barbieri's other Afro-American sidemen to his less disciplined all-South American band. But not by much. Both are recommended introductions to the only jazzman this side of Miles Davis to translate avant-garde into semi-popular without sounding venal. (Grade - A-)