As
Dean Rudland points out in
Ace's 2014 reissue of
Lonnie Liston Smith's 1974 set
Cosmic Funk,
Smith himself views this LP as a transitional effort, capturing him between his pioneering work with
Miles Davis' electric group and the exploratory
Expansions. This suggests it perhaps isn't a cohesive album and, true enough, it's a record where the good ideas are sometimes suggested rather than developed. Much of the record showcases the smooth vocal stylings of
Smith's brother
Donald, who leads on a vocal version of
John Coltrane's "Naima," lends a bit of a supper club vibe to "Beautiful Woman," croons through "Peaceful Ones," and dives into the thick, overlapping grooves of the title track. That opening song is one of the few tracks that emphasizes funk, otherwise the cosmic reigns, as the group usually getting spacy all the while never quite leaving the earth. 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. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
![Wendy & Lisa [Special Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/5013929431980_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Wendy & Lisa [Special Edition]")
