A guitarist who was used for many R&B-oriented dates and occasionally played jazz, Eric Gale had an appealing sound and was best while performing lazy melodic blues. He was most significant to the jazz world in the early '70s, when he recorded often as a sideman for CTI, later on with the group Stuff, and on isolated tracks on his own sessions. Gale's fine 1987 EmArcy set In a Jazz Tradition shows what he could really do. ~ Scott Yanow