Grp Records
1997
Dance Of The Soul
About This Album
One of his more memorable GRP dates of the 1990s, Dance of the Soul finds Ramsey Lewis playing mostly acoustic piano on a variety of material. The CD's main focus is accessible, yet creative, jazz-pop, though Lewis detours into gospel on "Mercy and Grace," classical on the acoustic solo piano piece "Cante Hondo (Deep Song)," and jazzy R&B on a remake of Teena Marie's 1981 gem "Portuguese Love" (which features the big-voiced singer Donica Henderson). The Chicagoan has some nice solos on melodic instrumentals like "Sub Dude," "Cancion," and the Joe Sample-ish "Love's Serenade," all of which demonstrate that commercial jazz-pop can be creative as well as highly accessible. In fact, these are the sorts of instrumentals one should use to turn pop and R&B fans on to jazz -- they're easy to absorb, but have a lot more substance than the type of mindless "elevator Muzak" that many pop instrumentalists favored in the 1990s. Although not a masterpiece, Dance of the Soul is a decent effort that has more ups than downs. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
Track List (try tracks 2,3,4,6,7 and 8)

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