Higher Plane
View on Discogs
View on Wikipedia
Album Summary
Higher Plane came down from the heavens in 1974 on De-Lite Records, the label that had been riding with Kool & The Gang since those early days when the fellas were laying down some of the rawest jazz-funk this side of Newark. The band produced the album themselves under the guiding hand of the brilliant Eumir Deodato, a man who knew how to shape sound into something that could move both your body and your soul. What Kool & The Gang was reaching for on this record was something deeper than the groove alone — they were stretching out spiritually, weaving uplifting lyrical themes into that irresistible rhythmic foundation they had been building since the beginning, signaling to the world that this group had more dimensions than even their most devoted fans had seen yet.
Reception
- The album performed respectably on the R&B charts, holding steady with the kind of consistent commercial presence that had made Kool & The Gang a reliable force in the funk and soul marketplace throughout the mid-1970s.
- Critics took notice of the album's artistic maturity, pointing to the more pronounced spiritual and socially conscious lyrical content as evidence that the band was growing well beyond their earlier instrumental-driven identity.
- While Higher Plane was not the commercial landmark that later records would become, it played its part in cementing the group's standing as one of the most prolific and purposeful funk acts of the entire decade.
Significance
- Higher Plane stands as a document of Kool & The Gang caught beautifully in transition — one foot planted in the gritty, percussion-heavy funk that made them legends, and the other stepping boldly toward a more message-driven, spiritually elevated sound they would continue to refine throughout the decade.
- The album's commitment to themes of spiritual uplift and positive consciousness placed it squarely within a powerful current running through Black popular music in the early 1970s, connecting Kool & The Gang to the broader soul and funk tradition of artists who believed music had a responsibility to heal and inspire.
- Higher Plane represents an important chapter in the band's evolution that helps explain how a group rooted in hard funk instrumentals could eventually arrive at the crossover sophistication that would define their later work — the seeds of that journey were being planted right here.
Samples
- Higher Plane — one of the most recognizable titles in the Kool & The Gang catalog from this period, with the track carrying a sampling legacy among hip-hop producers drawn to the album's spiritually charged funk energy.
- Wild Is Love — sampled within the hip-hop community as part of the broader mining of Kool & The Gang's 1970s output, which collectively stands as some of the most foundational source material the genre has ever drawn from.
Tracklist
-
A Higher Plane 104
3:15
-
B Wild Is Love 102
3:22
Artist Details
Kool & the Gang came together in Jersey City, New Jersey back in 1964, a brotherhood of musicians led by brothers Robert "Kool" Bell and Ronald Bell, cooking up a sound that blended jazz, funk, soul, and R&B into something that made it impossible to keep still. They gave the world stone-cold classics like "Jungle Boogie," "Hollywood Swinging," and later crossover anthems like "Celebration" and "Get Down on It," cementing themselves as one of the most versatile and enduring acts in Black music history. Their ability to evolve from hard-hitting funk pioneers into polished pop-soul hitmakers across four decades speaks to a musical genius that influenced everyone from hip-hop producers sampling their grooves to pop artists chasing that undeniable feel-good energy they perfected.
