Steve Kahn in Elements (ST 1983, Forward Motion 1984, Illuminations 1998, Blown Away OST 1986, Liberal Arts 1989)

 

From discogs:

New jazz-fusion quartet from the 1980s. They recorded five critically-acclaimed albums, performed and toured.  Members: Bill Evans (not the famous pianist one), Clifford Carter, Danny Gottlieb, Gil Goldstein, Mark Egan, Steve Khan

Some really nice smooth fusion which entirely follows from his earlier work. It's interesting for me to see that these LPs were extensively rereleased showing they must have been quite popular back in the day, of course we can see the appeal since it's so generically unstressful to listen to, unlike the dissonances of the earlier progressive fusion period of the 70s (eg James Vincent).  The first and ST album which came out in 1982 is surely the best and in this instance we get the law of declining progressiveness over the course of the 80s to the point where the last 80s album (they put out more in the 1990s) was almost unlistenable to my ears, at least partly due to the irritating digital percussion and jumpy style that they took in from the musical zeitgeist, necessarily so I would say.

From the first album the track called Color Wheel sounds like any great fusion composition from any era with its wonderful ostinato patterns:

While from the second album the track called Baby Bossa I would normally just fast forward anything with such an inauspicious word in it but it turned out nice: