Body Heat

Anyone seriously suggesting the musical output of Kanye West is tantamount to Quincy Jones’s, or opining that producing Thriller established Q’s career, could use a serious crash course in music history. For a man who never sings a note, this original super-producer’s solo albums saturated R&B radio from the 1970s to the 1990s, including Body Heat. “Everything Must Change” (with vocals from Benard Ighner), “If I Ever Lose This Heaven” (featuring Leon Ware and Minnie Riperton) and the title track embody the high-quality musicianship that made Michael Jackson invite Q to produce Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad in the first place.

The artists Quincy Jones assembled for his sublime 1974 set Body Heat reads like a ‘who’s who’ of jazz and soul and included Herbie Hancock, Bob James, Dennis Coffey, Bernard Purdie, Wah Wah Watson, Billy Preston, Leon Ware and Minnie Riperton! Cecil and Margouleff were on board to programme the Arp synthesiser which is all over the album, providing a futurist, space-age edge to the deep funk and soul. Body Heat is a haunting, brooding, heavy-duty, atmospheric sci-fi funk record that didn’t really sound like anything else at the time and which easily stands up today.