Emily: Before I turned on Street Life, I had no idea what
The Crusaders would be like. That name is so generic it could be anything –
rock, punk, country, 12th-century-Christian…the possibilities are
endless. What I got, however, was some pretty cool soul-and-funk-influenced
jazz from the ‘70s. The 11-minute-long title track, with soulful vocals and
modern jazz instrumentals, was simply great, and the other jazzy tracks weren’t
so bad either. While jazz isn’t always as exciting to me as other genres, I
definitely enjoyed my 40 soulful minutes with The Crusaders.
Favorite Tracks: Street
Life; Rodeo Drive (High Steppin’); Carnival of the Night
Zack: Oh the many types of jazz. There’s vocal jazz,
cool jazz, bebop, orchestral jazz, latin jazz, soul jazz, free jazz, swing,
even something called punk jazz that I am incredible excited to become a fan of
sometime in the future. The list goes on and on. I like vocal jazz a lot, so I
got very excited with the first and title track off this album. It wasn’t
lyrics that’ll change your life or anything like that, but it was words that
matched up with the intenseness of the backing jazz. Those were the only words
I heard for the next 28 minutes (with the notable exception of my brother’s
“hey this is kind of good”). And it was kind of good, words or no words. There
was just so much soul to it. That’s probably why Wikipedia describes it as
“jazz-funk.” That’s also probably why both Burt Reynolds and Quentin Tarantino
chose to include it in movies they were directing. Or maybe just because it’s
really good.
Favorite Tracks: Street Life; Carnival of the Night; Night
Faces
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