Norman Connors - Dance Of Magic - 180g Vinyl LP

2023

5* Review from UK VIBE by Steve W. Heath

So let’s picture the scene in Jimmy Carter’s 1976: Norman was notching up chart credits, Stanley Clarke, Alphonse Mouzon and Cecil McBee had made their own albums, the Vietnam War was over and, oh yes, the Buddah label had a cracking album they decided to reissue as the season for giving approached with some bright spark at the label rebooting the sleeve artwork for good measure. And that’s when the proverbial penny dropped and the album elevated itself to the high standing we hold it in today – a majestic classic.

As with all reissues from the PP People, exquisite re-mastering, sleeve printing and 180g pressing gives the album all the credit and respect it deserves and for this writer, the best copy he’s ever owned. For us and for Norman, this was to be the start of something very special and should be welcomed into households near and far – with or without a dapper jacket and scarf.
Norman Connors 'Dance of Magic' 180g Vinyl (Pure Pleasure) 5/5 - ukvibe - astral travelling since 1993

Jazzwise Magazine June 2023 by Kevin Le Gendre 4**** RECOMMENDED

To a generation of 1980s clubgoers, drummer Norman Connors is one of the archetypal jazz-funk heroes whose Starship Orchestra had the kind of slickly produced sound that was in line with that of Roy Ayres, Ronnie Laws and Lonnie Liston Smith.

But few fans were probably aware of the music Connors had made at the beginning of the 1970s, which was heavy, to say the least. A sideman to the likes of Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders, Connors moved in avant-garde circles, as Dance Of Music (here remastered by Cecily Baston at Air) makes clear.

The density of the music-big, bulging double bass lines, torrid African, Latin and Western percussion, mighty horn section -clearly betrays the influence of his mentors. Tellingly, Sanders’ stupendous Black Unity was recorded in the same year, 1972, and, with a partial overlap of personnel, the two albums are very much sonic cousins. Dance of Magic’s 20-minute title track, with its click-clack balaphone, whirl of poloyrhythms and cracking solos, from Herbie Hancock, among others, really sets the tone, while `Morning Change’ is a svelte mid-tempo samba glowing up with Rhodes chords, and lyrical work from Eddie Henderson.

The set winds up with the drums-percussion blast off `Give The Drummer Some’, which is a raucous exchange between Connors and Airto, but the whole album is a hard-edged triumph of ensemble playing. Shame the female vocals on the title track are not credited.

by Kevin Le Gendre