Chieli Minucci - Travels (2008)

This CD and it's companion recording "East Of The Sun" both show smooth-jazz guitarist and Special Efx leader Minucci really stretching out and creating music not intended for smooth jazz radio (he still does those as well), but rather, simply being creative and letting the music be made according to his creative impulse.

There's some very long pieces here (including one which runs 28 minutes in total), so ,clearly, radio play isn't the goal here.

In the early days of Special Efx in the early 80's the band had many more influences besides the smooth jazz they became known for. But around the time of "Catwalk" (1994) the band pretty much ditched all the more esoteric influences and became a very good smooth-jazz machine. But for me,they pretty much lost what it is that made them special when they did.

Well those qualities are in abundance on his 2 recent releases, "Travels" and "East Of The Sun" and I highly recommend both of these if you're not afraid of more adventurous music that is outside of the smooth jazz realm.