The jazz framework of Songs in the Key of Life needs to be discussed more. To have the likes of Bobbi Humphrey, Dorothy Ashby, George Benson, Herbie Hancock, Raymond Maldonado, and Ronnie Foster contributing on the same album was major.
As a music journalist myself, I often think about how huge the anticipation for Songs in the Key of Life's release was and how the music press received it for the first time after its two-year delay. A week before the album's release, Stevie Wonder hosted an extravagant listening party at the sprawling 145-acre Long View Farm Studios in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, before a dozen music reporters from major publications. This was pre-mobile phones, social media, and recording leaks. All they had was the music, lyric pamphlets, and a picturesque rural farm.