Ramsey Lewis's Columbia period followed the near demise of Chess, where he'd had his huge success with The In Crowd. These four albums follow the meteoric rise of his ‘Sun Goddess’ single, and have the fingerprints of his chums in Earth, Wind & Fire all over them, as producers and collaborators. The opening album Don't It Feel Good is fine in a 1975 fusion way, but ‘Slick’, the opening track of Sãlongo, picks us up by the scruff of the neck and makes us realise why Ramsey was ultimately so successful as both an acoustic jazz artist and a fusioneer. Acoustic piano gives way to a heavyweight jazz rock backdrop, but with dynamic acoustic solos from Oscar Brashear's athletic trumpet and Ernie Watts' tenor, the track straddles both Ramsey's jazz worlds, while clearly connecting with the fusion generation of the mid-70s. There's a similar feel on the latin-charged ‘Brasilica’, with a fluent keyboard solo from Lewis and some muscular tenor from Don Myrick. The exemplary electric bass is by Earth, Wind & Fire's Verdine White, whose elder brother Maurice composed the track and co-produced the album with Charles Stepney. This White/Stepney axis is at the heart of the whole BGO reissue, though Stepney died in 1976 and the final album of the quartet, Love Notes, is dedicated to his memory. On Tequila Mockingbird, Victor Feldman guests on his own ‘Skippin’', and the acoustic piano here is mirrored by Ramsey on ‘Caring for You’, with an elegant theme statement and solo, as if his older trio style is layered over the funk backdrop. Love Notes is enlivened by the guest presence of Stevie Wonder (who penned the title-track, and backs Lewis's acoustic piano on the song). Overall it is Sãlongo that has stood the test of time best, but Love Notes runs it close for breadth of material within what had by this time become a tried and tested Columbia format for Lewis.