The Wiz [Original Soundtrack]

Performer: Original Soundtrack
Engineer: Bruce Swedien; Skip Saylor
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Principal cast includes: Diana Ross (Dorothy); Michael Jackson (Scarecrow); Nipsey Russell (Tinman); Ted Ross (Lion); Richard Pryor (The Wiz); Lena Horne (Glinda); Mabel King (Eviline); Thelma Carpenter (Miss One); Theresa Merrit (Aunt Em). Additional personnel includes: Ann Barak, Arnold Black, Arthur Bogin (vocals); Eric Gale (guitar); Ann Barak, Arnold Black, Arthur Bogin, Max Cahn (violin); Janet Hamilton (cello); Pepper Adams, Danny Banks, Ray Beckenstein (woodwinds); Tom Bahler, Randy Brecker, Daniel Cahn, Jon Faddis, Bernie Glow (trumpet); Ray Alonge (french horns); George Flynn, Urbie Green (trombones); Don Butterfield (tuba); Kenny Ascher, Thom Bridwell (keyboards); John Beal, Ron Carter, Milton Hinton (bass); Steve Gadd (drums). Recorded at A&R Recording Studios, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Quincy Jones, Bruce Swedien and Sidney Lumet. All tracks have been digitally remastered. Director Sidney Lumet's big budget film version of The Wiz, an updated musical treatment of The Wizard of Oz with songs by Charlie Smalls, is not remembered as one of the great movie musicals. But you wouldn't know that from this elaborate double-LP soundtrack album, on which Smalls's Broadway score is augmented by music written by producer Quincy Jones, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, and Luther Vandross. Jones organized a studio band of New York jazz veterans, including Toots Thielemans, Eric Gale, Michael Brecker, and Richard Tee, and of course the cast provides spectacular vocal firepower in the persons of Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. The result was a Top 40, gold-selling album paced by a Top 40 single of "Ease on Down the Road" by Ross and Jackson (outperforming the 1975 version by Consumer Rapport), as well as the chart single "You Can't Win," by Jackson. Much comparison has been made between the vocal (not to mention the facial) resemblance between Ross and Jackson; here's the only place to hear them together. ~ William Ruhlmann

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