AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Lonnie Liston Smith

 

Artist:Lonnie Liston Smith f/Donald Smith

Song:Expansions

Album:Introducing

Jazz pianist Lonnie Liston Smith started out as a sideman in the 60s. His 70s albums with his band The Cosmic Echoes have been very influential and frequently sampled by hip hop guys. Expansions has been sampled 16 times according to the website Who Sampled. He is not to be confused with jazz pianist Lonnie Smith who started wearing a turban and changed his name to Dr. Lonnie Smith to avoid the confusion. Lonnie Liston Smith was born Dec. 28, 1940 in Richmond, VA. His father was in the gospel group The Harmonizing Four. Smith earned a Bachelor of Science in music education at Morgan State University in Baltimore. He played local clubs until he moved to New York in 1963. He was in Betty Carter's band for a year. Smith's first recorded appearance was on Roland Kirk's 1965 live recording Here Comes the Whistleman. He joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in 1965. He was only in the band for a few months. He returned to Kirk's band and also spent a year with Max Roach. He then joined Pharoah Sanders' band and that's where Smith started experimenting with electric keyboards. That led to a two year stint with Gato Barbieri and a brief time with Miles Davis. Smith learned to play organ and he appeared on On the Corner (1973) and Big Fun (1974). Then he started his own band The Cosmic Echoes and signed with former Impulse Records producer Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label. They knew each other from the Sanders albums. Smith recorded five albums for Flying Dutchman and two more for RCA after Thiele sold Flying Dutchman. He also recorded four albums for Columbia. Expansions is from the 1974 album Expansions. Smith's brother Donald Smith sings and plays flute. Other musicians are Cecil McBee on bass, Art Gore on drums and Michael Carvin, Leopoldo Fleming and Lawrence Killian on percussion. As I said, Expansions has been sampled many times by hip hop guys, most notably by Stetsasonic in the 1988 single Talkin' All That Jazz. In the 80s, Smith recorded three albums for Thiele's new label Doctor Jazz. Smith last recorded as a leader in the early 90s. He still tours especially in Europe and Japan. And sampling has generated interest in Smith's Flying Dutchman recordings. This RCA budget comp covers those recordings. And he still gets those royalty cheques as Expansions has appeared in several video games. Here's a video for Expansions by Lonnie Liston Smith.