Earth, Wind and Fire recorded some of the greatest funky jazz soul of the Seventies, but they lost their way as record-makers long after entering "Boogie Wonderland" in 1979. Their twenty-third album, Illumination, taps into Santana's now-familiar Supernatural formula: Give a veteran great a hip replacement by surrounding it with lots of gifted youngbloods. On Illumination, the formula works well largely because the parties involved — including Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Raphael Saadiq and Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am — seem to sincerely treasure the EWF sound. High points include two Jam and Lewis tracks, "Love's Dance" and the characteristically dreamy "Pure Gold"; also the sexy "Show Me the Way," featuring Saadiq; and even a cover of OutKast's "The Way You Move," which could go down as the funkiest song in guest saxophonist Kenny G.'s catalog.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.