Cosmic funk

"Although the group is quite lively on a relatively straight-ahead reading of Wayne Shorter's "Footprints," the album is distinguished by the spaces that lie between funk and bop, the periods where Smith and company start to float, then pull themselves back".

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"Space-age jazz-funk from the astral-jazz pianist: [Smith's Cosmic Echoes'] run of albums for Flying Dutchman is described by the fusion-phobic jazz critic Richard Cook as "something close to the nadir of the genre", which is a tad unfair on their later, dancefloor-friendly albums, and certainly doesn't apply to their first LP (the Alice Coltrane-inspired 'Astral Travellin') or this second outing. Here double bassist Cecil McBee has been replaced by bass guitarist Al Anderson, but the band still keep one foot in the astral-jazz camp with a pulsating version of Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" and a shimmering take on John Coltrane's "Naima", with Lonnie's Fender Rhodes put through a ring modulator".