Calvin Keys – Proceed With Caution!

Calvin Keys, the Bay Area jazz guitar legend, released his first solo album, Shawn-Neeq, in 1971, which remains one of the Black Jazz label's most popular albums. But that record was only the prelude to 1974's Proceed with Caution, and this time the arrangements were more complex, the instrumentation more varied. In short, a quantum leap forward; indeed, as Calvin Pat Thomas recounts in his liner notes for the release, "I began attending the Los Angeles School of Music to study orchestration, and I applied it!

And he recruited the band that would fulfill his ambitious musical vision in full, including legendary drummer Leon 'Ndugu' Chancler, fellow Black Jazz musicians Henry Franklin on bass and Kirk Lightsey on keyboards, and Charles Owens (Horace Tapscott, Buddy Rich, Terry Callier, John Mayall) on saxophone and flute