Whether he was playing jazz or R&B, drummer Leon Ndugu Chancler spent much of his career in a sideman role. But the Los Angeles resident was in the driver's seat in 1979 and 1980, when he led an obscure, short-lived soul/funk outfit he called the Chocolate Jam Co. It's safe to say that the vast majority of R&B fans have never even heard of the combo, which was assembled by Chancler in 1979 and signed with Epic that year. The Chocolate Jam Co. (whose influences included Earth, Wind Fire, Roy Ayers and Chancler employer George Duke) only recorded two albums: 1979's The Spread of the Future and 1980's Do I Make You Feel Better?, both of which were produced by Chancler and found him writing or co-writing all of the material. The LPs also gave Chancler an opportunity to do a lot of lead singing, which was unusual for him because he was a drummer first and foremost. Unfortunately, neither LP received much attention and both of them went out of print in the early '80s. ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi