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' Broadway score is augmented by music written by producer
Quincy Jones,
Nickolas Ashford & 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 was 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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