Kool And The Gang - Summer Madness

Kool And The Gang - Jazz Musicians Kool & the Gang, jazz musicians, is the optic that identifies the era of the 70s and 80s. There was great unrest in the country because of the war in Southeast Asia and the tidal wave of civil unrest following the Kent State confrontation with the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970.  In 1969, Kool and the Gang produced three hit singles on the pop and R&B charts of Billboard magazine.  This was the beginning of the "Kool" act that would be hard to follow.
The idea of creating music began in 1964 with Robert Bell who was only 13 at the time, his brother Ronald and five school friends in Jersey City, New Jersey. They created a band called Jazziacs, an instrumental band.
The band stayed on the move and in 1974, released two pace-setting albums, "Light Of The World" and "Spirit Of The Boogie" In 1979, J.T. Taylor joined the band as lead singer. Around this time, the band started working with the offshore influence of Brazillian fusion musician, Eumir Deodato as producer. 
Kool And The Gang began to gravitate away from funk and set their course to rhythm & blues and pop music. What resulted from the Brazilian influence were The songs "Ladies' Night" and "Too Hot" were hits and the album was certified platinum by the RIAA.

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The 1980s continued the arc with the compositions of "Big Fun", "Get Down on It", and "Joanna". The album, Emergency  released in 1984,  yielded four Top 20 pop hits, including "Fresh" and "Cherish".