MOONSCAPES

After his great near masterpiece from 1977 Slow Traffic to the Right I decided to check out his work a bit more and ended up with this successor from a year later. And guess what ? This is actually more progressive than STttR. My challenge right now is to decide which is the better album but this is far more in fusion style than the straightforward funky style from the predecessor.

And this also means that Moonscapes is even a better justification for inclusion on PA than STttR. The way he plays the sax and bass clarinet on this album (mainly Anua) reminds me somewhat of Santana's Borboletta (Here and Now !) so more in a free style sort of way. Just playing about, almost noodling but still making sense if you know what I mean. So indeed more fusion than plain jazz one might say.

On the other hand, on Nightwatch there's still pure funk to be enjoyed so I'm not saying it's a black and white thing with the funk/fusion switch but overall I feel it's the case. Bottom line is that Maupin also here proves his ultimate class and can without doubt be classified as one of jazz' wind greats. It's not a coincidence he played with Davis and Hancock. In the end this album is not as special for me as the predecessor but it's still a very good album and this means another four stars, slightly rounded up (3,9).