Some of my very favorite fusion of this vintage remains the three Herbie Hancock Sextet discs that immediately predate his turn to more "professional, polished" funk with the Headhunters (not that I'm dissing the Headhunters, mind you, but it was a different thing and sounds like what you're trying to avoid). That sextet, with Dr. Eddie Henderson, Bennie Maupin, Julius Priester, Buster Willims and Billy Hart (along with Patrick Gleason on ancient analogue synths) is to me one of the most successful blends of fusion groove with outside playing and sheer ambience. Long, complex, atmospheric and soulful. The first two discs by the group, 'Mwandishi' and 'Crossings,' were fairly recently paired on a 2CD set called 'Mwandishi: The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings' on Warner Archives, which also included the more conventional jazz-funk album that preceded them, 'Fat Albert Rotunda.' (I've also seen those three available on individual import CDs, not badly priced but certainly less cost-effective. The third, 'Sextant,' was remastered and reissued by Columbia Legacy in '98. Two Eddie Henderson albums from the same period and featuring most of the same musicians have just been reissued on a single import CD. I've read good things about that on another forum, but it's still pricey anywhere I've managed to find it, and this month's Wire was lukewarm on it. Anyone here have a firsthand opinion. Other than those, Larry Young's 'Lawrence of Newark,' recently discussed here, is worth acquiring for its insane blend of ethnic trance, Sun Ra space dust and stomping proto-fusion. It's been unavailable for ages and the current CD version on Castle probably won't be around forever. Circle is great, but it's not fusion by a long shot; it's the early, experimental Chick Corea trio mixing it up with Braxton in pretty avant-garde territory. West coast keyboardist Wayne Peet has made some pretty stomping recent forays into this territory - well, recent as in within the last ten years. His album 'Blasto!' on 9 Winds is terrific fun and features great contributions by Vinny Golia, Bruce Fowler, John Fumo, Steubig, and Nels and Alex Cline. Never made it to CD, but I bet you can still score the LP from Vinny's 9 Winds site. Peet also did a burning trio session with guitarist G.E. Stinson and a drummer whose name escapes me at the moment, very reminiscent of Tony Williams' first Lifetime but much better recorded. And while we're on the subject of the Clines, both are featured in percussionist Gregg Bendian's band Interzone (with Bendian mostly on vibraphone and a rotating cast of bass players). That band plays new music that seems directly derived from classic fusion and even prog-rock. Bendian has another band, the Mahavishnu Project, that (obviously) plays music of the classic-period Mahavishnu Orchestra well enough to earn McLaughlin's blessing. You'd never know it from his work with Cecil Taylor and Peter Brotzmann, but Bendian, it seems, was born to channel Billy Cobham's thundrous sextuplets. The current issue of Jazziz has a decent history by Bill Milkowski, along with a fairly ghastly overview of the genre (Frank Zappa listed as a Miles disciple for the most specious of reasons; Zorn listed as a fusion mainstay as well), but you might glean a few decent leads from browsing it and checking out the cover CD. Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com P.S. John Schuller's 'Lesser Angel of Misery' is a work of sheer demented genius, one of the most organic and inevitable slices of weird I've come upon lately, while dinting not at all on the actual performance end. Well done, sir, well done. Now I need to hear his new one, which opens with the brilliantly titled "Han Bennink Can Take the Night Off," if I remember correctly.