Donny Hathaway is one of the most important black performers to emerge in recent years. Important in the sense that Isaac Hayes, Sly Stone, Funkadelic/Parliament or the Last Poets are important: influential (for better or worse), far-ranging and possessed of a unique, new style. Hathaway had already completed brilliant work as producer, arranger, composer, musician (choose one or any combination...

Like Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind, Donny Hathaway's Extensions of a Man, produced by Arif Mardin, is an ambitious breakthrough album that significantly broadens the musical palette of a major black artist, fulfilling in large measure promises long-offered. But whereas Wonder has lately concentrated on expanding the textural definitions of R&B as it has evolved out of Motown, Hathaway shows...