Duke's Rainbow: Fusion Without the Ego
Follow the Rainbow catches Duke at a moment when jazz fusion was still learning to breathe.
By 1979, George Duke had already proven himself across multiple styles — funk grooves with Frank Zappa, straight-ahead jazz with the Quintet, session work with everyone from Al Jarreau to Cannonball Adderley. Follow the Rainbow sits somewhere in the middle of all that, and it works because Duke refuses to choose a lane. The album pulls from soul, funk, and modal jazz without sounding scattered or trying too hard to make any single statement.
What makes this record breathe is its restraint. For a keyboardist with Duke's technical gifts, Follow the Rainbow could have been a showcase for chops — note clusters, rapid runs, synthesizer gimmickry. Instead, there's space. The arrangements let melodies sit, let grooves develop, let the band settle into pockets instead of racing to the next idea. The soul elements don't feel tacked on; they're woven into the harmonic DNA. Funk doesn't overshadow the jazz sensibility. It's a balancing act that sounds easy only because it's done well.
AllMusic gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars, and the album charted respectably — No. 3 on the Jazz Albums chart, No. 17 on the Soul Albums chart. That split tells you something. This wasn't pure jazz for the jazz audience or pure funk for the funk audience. It was Duke's version of something wider. Not his most famous record, and it doesn't need to be. It's one of his smartest.
Who's playing
Byron Millerbass guitar
Roland Bautistaelectric guitar
Where next?
More by George Duke
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