Lonnie Liston Smith

Lonnie Liston Smith

Lonnie Liston Smith is an American jazz and soul pianist and keyboardist from Richmond, Virginia, born in 1940. He is known for work in jazz fusion, funk, and crossover styles, and for leading Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes, a group he forms in 1973 after moving from sideman roles into leadership.

Early career

Before forming his own group, Smith works as a sideman with Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Gato Barbieri, Betty Carter, and Miles Davis. He is still working with Davis when he signs with Bob Thiele’s RCA-distributed Flying Dutchman label and records his first album as a leader, Astral Traveling. The album is produced by Thiele and recorded in 1973.

Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes

Smith’s main band, Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes, combines post-bop influences with funk, pop, rock, and spiritual jazz. Its sound draws on artists such as John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef, McCoy Tyner, and Charles Lloyd. The first lineup on Astral Traveling is an instrumental group featuring George Barron, Joe Beck, Cecil McBee, David Lee, Jr., James Mtume, Sonny Morgan, Badal Roy, and Geeta Vashi.

Donald Smith, Lonnie Liston Smith’s brother, later joins the group as vocalist. He does not sing on Astral Traveling, but appears on the 1974 album Cosmic Funk, the first Cosmic Echoes release to feature his vocals. From then on, the group’s albums are usually mostly instrumental, with a small number of vocal tracks.

Albums and label changes

The Cosmic Echoes record a series of albums in the 1970s, including Expansions, Visions of a New World, Reflections of a Golden Dream, and Renaissance. These releases appear on Flying Dutchman or RCA. A 1977 live album features a later, changed lineup including Smith, Donald Smith, Dave Hubbard, Al Anderson, Ronald Miller, and Hollywood Barker.

In 1978, Smith and the Cosmic Echoes move to Columbia and record Loveland, which sells well by jazz standards and is popular with fusion, crossover, and quiet storm listeners. Exotic Mysteries follows on Columbia and includes the single “Space Princess,” with Donald Smith on lead vocals. The song becomes a minor hit and has a funk-disco character while keeping the group’s spiritual atmosphere.

During the Columbia period, the lineup changes frequently and includes musicians such as Abdul Wali, Pee Wee Ford, Lino Reyes, and Lawrence Killian. Donald Smith leaves for a time, and singer James “Crabbe” Robinson appears on Song for the Children and Love Is the Answer.

Later work

In the early 1980s, Smith and the Cosmic Echoes reunite with Bob Thiele on his Doctor Jazz label. One of the recordings from this period is “Never Too Late,” a vocal track released as a single and issued as a minor hit. The group effectively ends in the mid-1980s, and Smith later returns to a Cosmic Echoes-style approach on Transformation, released in 1998 on his own Loveland Records label, with Donald Smith featured again.

In 2002, Legacy Recordings issues the two-disc retrospective Explorations: The Columbia Years, surveying the group’s late-1970s and early-1980s Columbia recordings.