There was a time when Jimmy Owens was being positioned as the coming superstar of the jazz trumpet, signed to AM's contemporary-thinking Horizon label as a leader and jumping into the thick of the jazz-funk scene. On this LP, he sounds as if he is trying to pick up from where Donald Byrd left off after his fascinating, if too-brief, Electric Byrd phase. Surrounded by a funky rhythm section propelled by Brian Brake, with battalions of wah-wah guitars (George Davis, Lloyd Davis, and Carl Lynch) and bass (Chris White), and the stoic Kenny Barron on ARP strings, clavinet, and Rhodes piano, Owens sails above the churning mix with a slender, lightish tone that nevertheless has a steel thread running through it. The combination works intermittently, alas, sometimes within the same number; for example, Caravan's chorus has a fine, funky Headhunters-like feeling, but the bridge leans toward predictable commercial disco as per the formula of the times. Owens' solos are commanding in tone yet unsure in substance, and Barron is at sea on electric piano when he solos. Only on the sole track that uses acoustic piano, a fast-paced Latin-tinged treatment of Secret Love, do Owens and Barron seem truly at home and able to burn. Though the musicians write brave manifestos about the new worlds of electronics and no categories on the inside liner, the music suggests that they are not quite convinced. ~ Richard S. Ginell, Rovi