This retrospective spotlights a prolific purple patch in Ayers’ career, focusing on the mid-to- late 1970s when he took the vibraphone into the pop mainstream via a series of commercially successful albums for Polydor Records.
Roy’s Band, which had previously been known as the Roy Ayers Quartet - a name that Ayers thought was too “square” and described as “a drag” - morphed into a much larger ensemble called Roy Ayers Ubiquity. Ayers said: “At that time, in 1970 when I joined Polydor, my manager, said ‘Roy, you should name the group Ubiquity.’ I said what does that mean? ‘Ubiquity means a state of being everywhere at the same time.’ I said, ‘That’s fate because if everyone has one of my albums I will be everywhere.’ I thought it was great so I started using that name.”
Key Tracks on this package are ‘Running Away’ which is not only featured as the album version, but also as an the 12” extended mix bonus track, ‘Evolution’, ‘Het, Uh What You Say Come On’, ‘The Third Eye’, ‘Tongue Power’, ‘Domelo (Give It To Me)’, ‘Searching’ and ‘The Golden Rod’.
Vice President and President elect Kamala Harris recently described ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’ as one of her favourite albums of all time.
Roy Ayers announced his retirement from touring in 2023, the five albums in this box set capture him at his peak. They remind us that in his prime, his music was an irresistible force, providing spiritual nourishment for the soul as well as irresistible dance grooves for the feet.
The package includes fabulous sleeve notes by Charles Waring (MOJO, Record Collector and uDiscover Music).
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