Invitation

Jazz drummer/composer Norman Connors’ 1979 Invitation is a feast of carefully orchestrated jazz-funk, two-step ballads and superbly played disco. Featuring lead vocals from Adaritha with the Jones Girls and Jean Carn on backing vocals and a roll call of quality jazz and R’n’B musicians, Invitation’s tracks are rich, detailed and perfectly constructed. Mainstream disco may have been begun to lose its appeal as it became over-commercialised by the end of the ‘70s, but the warm inviting production, together with the quality of the songs and the playing here lifts this up above average disco fare.