Director
Sidney Lumet
's big-budget film version of
The Wiz
, an updated musical treatment of
The Wizard of Oz
with songs by
Charlie Smalls
, is not remembered as one of the great movie musicals. But you wouldn't know that from this elaborate double-LP soundtrack album, on which
Smalls
' Broadway score is augmented by music written by producer
Quincy Jones
,
Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson
, and
Luther Vandross
.
Jones
organized a studio band of New York jazz veterans, including
Toots Thielemans
Eric Gale
Michael Brecker
Richard Tee
, and of course the cast provides spectacular vocal firepower in the persons of
Diana Ross
and
Michael Jackson
. The result was a Top 40, gold-selling album paced by a Top 40 single of
"Ease on Down the Road"
by
Ross
Jackson
(outperforming the 1975 version by
Consumer Rapport
), as well as the chart single
"You Can't Win,"
. Much comparison was made between the vocal (not to mention the facial) resemblance between
; here's the only place to hear them together. ~ William Ruhlmann