Mingo Lewis - Flight Never Ending. 1976 USA

"Heavy symphonic synthesizer music with a lot of really happening rhythmic patterns" is how Mingo Lewis self describes Flight Never Ending. And honestly, there's not much more to add. But I will anyway. Mingo Lewis was New York City born and bred, son of jazz guitarist James Lewis. In 1970, Carlos Santana got wind of the legendary percussionist jamming in Central Park, and asked he join the band, which he did for the following four years. Following that, he hooked up with Return to Forever for their No Mystery tour in 1975, thus the similarity in sound was no coincidence including the funk track 'Trapezoid'. It also cemented an important relationship with one Al Di Meola, who not only recorded Lewis' composition 'Wizard' on his debut, but also repurposed 'Frankincense' into 'Chasin the Voodoo' on his Casino album (I can hear all of you now going "I knew I heard that song somewhere!"). Eventually Lewis relocated to San Francisco later in '75 and latched on with a hot, but unknown, progressive rock band known as Light Year that we only learned about a few years ago through the brilliant archival Reveal the Fantastic album. For the remainder of the tracks not listed, well you the listener are in for a treat. Read everything above, including the links, and you can figure out the rest. As my old friend Herky Jerky (MAP) says, this is one of the best 70s fusion albums ever made! Don't miss this one.

Personal collection
LP: 1976 Columbia
CD: 2017 Wounded Bird

I've owned this on album since the 1980s. I currently own a white label promo that comes with a biographical insert (and where some of the data I provide above comes from). The album has finally been reissued on CD properly by Wounded Bird.