Texas Twister

by Richie UnterbergerLike many soul-jazz musicians, Melvin Sparks moved into funkier directions as the mid-'70s approached, whether out of pressure from marketing trends, a desire to explore that area, or both. As such efforts go, Texas Twister is a decent one, though not innovative or tremendously exciting. Working as the leader of three different configurations of musicians varying in size from a trio to a ten-piece, Sparks wrote about half of the material and took all the guitar solos, though Ron Miller also played guitar on three tracks. The cuts with the larger band tend to be the funkiest, the group playing with real pluck on "Whip! Whop!" But elsewhere, they lean toward a more straight-ahead soul-jazz direction, with "Judy's Groove" setting a nice swinging, walking beat. "Star in the Crescent" is an effortless throwback to the classic, more bop-driven '60s soul-jazz style, Sparks peeling off some fluid lightning riffs and giving plenty of space to Idris Muhammad's drums and Caesar Frazer's skittering organ. Texas Twister was combined with the 1975 LP '75 on a single-disc CD reissue.