George Duke - The Aura Will Prevail

Reissue of George Duke's classic 1975 jazz-funk-fusion album 'The Aura Will Prevail', featuring Alphonso Johnson, Airto Moreira and Leon Ndugu Chancler.

With its intensive quartet, this 1975 recording again mirrors how far Duke, by his own admission, had moved away from the smug and overly serious jazz musician and towards a master of fusion, eager to experiment and add a note of humour to the music. With Santana drummer Leon Ndugu Chancler, bassist Alphonso Slim Johnson, and the Brazilian percussion magician Airto Moriera, Duke designed stunning scenarios in sound which once more reveals him to be one of the synthesizer pioneers.

He paints a fantastic morning atmosphere in Dawn; in Floop the Loop Duke conjures animated, funky tone poems. There is a change of scene as Duke takes up the role of soulful singer on the smooth ballads For Love and Fools. His onetime collaboration with the Mothers of Invention rubs off on Duke's adaptations of Echnidna's Arf and Uncle Remus, and a touch of samba is added to the relaxed tropical magic of Malibu.