Reception

Spirit of the Boogie is the highly successful eighth studio album released in 1975 by Kool & the Gang

Kool & the Gang

Kool & the Gang are an American jazz, R&B, soul, and funk group, originally formed as the Jazziacs in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1964.They went through several musical phases during the course of their recording career, starting out with a purist jazz sound, then becoming practitioners of R&B and...

. It can be seen as a follow-up to Wild and Peaceful (1973); The instrumental "Jungle Jazz" uses the same basic rhythm track heard in "Jungle Boogie", but lets the players improvise on their instruments (saxophone, trumpet and flute). Reminiscences or earlier works can be noticed ("Ride The Rhythm" contains the line: "making merry music...", which was the name of a song from their 1972 album, Good Times). "Spirit of the Boogie" features Donal Boyce, who was rapping on "Jungle Boogie". Some African influence can be felt, and the band even play in a West-Indian style on "Caribbean Festival", another instrumental track, with once more lots of room for improvisation.

Track listing

Personnel

• Amir-Salaam Bayyan - Guitar
• Khalis Bayyan - Piano, Arranger, Sax (Tenor), Vocals, Clavinet, Kalimba, Arp
• Robert "Kool" Bell - Bass, Vocals
• Donal Boyce - Vocals
• George "Funky" Brown - Percussion, Piano, Drums, Vocals
• Godfrey Diamond - Engineer, Mixing
• Ron Saint Germain - Engineer
• Harvey Goldberg - Engineer, Mixing
• Alec Head - Engineer
• Ray Janos - Engineer

• Robert "Spike" Mickens - Percussion, Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Vocals
• Otha Nash - Trombone, Vocals
• Terry Rosiello - Engineer
• Dennis "D.T." Thomas - Flute, Sax (Alto), Vocals
• Ricky West - Vocals, Clavinet
• Gary N. Mayo - Digital Remastering
• Henry Arvinger - Photography
• Claydes E.X. Smith
  Claydes Charles Smith
  Claydes Charles Smith was an American musician best known as co-founder and lead guitarist of the group Kool & the Gang.Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, he was introduced to jazz guitar by his father in the early 1960s...
  
  - Guitar
• Something Sweet - Vocals (bckgr)

Charts

Year	Album	Chart positions
		US Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	US R&B Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...	Jazz Albums
1975	Spirit of the Boogie Spirit of the Boogie -Reception:Spirit of the Boogie is the highly successful eighth studio album released in 1975 by Kool & the Gang. It can be seen as a follow-up to Wild and Peaceful ; The instrumental "Jungle Jazz" uses the same basic rhythm track heard in "Jungle Boogie", but lets the players improvise on their...	48	5	18

Singles

Year	Single	Chart positions
		US Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	US R&B Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...	US Dance
1975	"Spirit of the Boogie"	35	1	—
	"Caribbean Festival"	—	55	6