As this seems to be turning into a bit of a Prince thread...I'm happy to say that I thought at the time, and still do, that he was a major talent producing some great albums - the run from 'Dirty Mind' through to 'Lovesexy' was one of the strongest of the time. He wrote some great songs, just try listening to 'Parade'. I was hearing and buying these as they came out and I always thought 'Purple Rain' was the weakest of that fine bunch though.
Back to 80s Jazz, really looking forward to the blog as it runs through from the time I was starting to listen to Jazz from about 80/81 (hope that album's in the list )