Japanese only pressing, 24-bit remastered reissue of the late jazz/fusion drummer's 1969 album. Sony. 2005.
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Williams's group Lifetime, which looked on paper like an organ jazz-funk trio, produced in 1969 this headlong hybrid from jazz complexity and rock immediacy. Williams, fresh from edging Davis towards his jazz-rock-soul period, concocts a driving, high-volume fusion that has more conviction and flare than anyone else's would until the advent of the great Mahavishnu Orchestra a couple of years later. That band was led by Williams's collaborator here, John McLaughlin, as blistering and savvy a guitarist as any jazz-rock saw. Larry Young's organ is a skirmishing juggernaut, clearing and blasting into space above, behind, beneath, and between the drummer's crashing, jittering rhythms. A cautionary note: To be sure, Williams's singing on Emergency! is brave, at best, but it is blessedly limited. --Peter Monaghan
