HAZEL, EDDIE / Game, Dames And Guitar Thangs

Here’s an odd one. Funk guitarist Eddie Hazel – part of the highly-esteemed Parliament / Funkadelic family – released his own solo LP in 1977. And while he’s most often associated with the soaring, blistering metallic axework with which he dazzled listeners on such discs as Funkadelic’s 1971 Maggot Brain, on Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs, he’s generally more intent on settling into a groove. But it’s a tasty groove indeed. The seven-track album is book-ended by a pair of versions of “California Dreamin’,” a song strong enough to work in virtually any idiom.