Lonnie Liston Smith - Early Career (1963 - 1973)

1973)

Lonnie was born into a musical family; his father was a member of Richmond Gospel music group The Harmonizing Four, and Lonnie remembers groups such as the Swan Silvertones and the Soul Stirrers (then featuring a young Sam Cooke) as regular visitors to the house when he was a child. He learned piano, tuba and trumpet in High School and College, graduating from Morgan State University, Baltimore with a Bachelor of Science degree in music education. He has since cited Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis as major influences on his youth. While still a teenager at College, Lonnie became well known locally as a backing vocalist as well as pianist, and played in the Baltimore area with a number of his contemporaries, including Gary Bartz (alto), Grachan Moncur (trombone), and Mickey Bass (bass). He also backed a number of jazz singers such as Betty Carter and Ethel Ennis when, soon after graduating, he began playing live with the house band at the Royal Theater, Baltimore.

In 1963 he moved to New York, and played piano in Betty Carter's band for a year. Early in 1965 Lonnie began playing with Rahsaan Roland Kirk (then known as Roland Kirk), first recording with his band on "Here Comes The Whistleman" (Atlantic, 1965), an album recorded live in NYC, March 14, 1965. A further track from that gig, "Dream" appeared later the same year on Roland Kirk and Al Hibbler's live album "A Meeting Of The Times" (Atlantic, 1965).

Late in 1965 Lonnie joined Art Blakey's sextet, the Jazz Messengers, sharing the piano position with Mike Nock and Keith Jarrett. The Jazz Messengers, together with Miles Davis' group, were one of the main proving grounds for young up-and-coming jazz musicians, experimentally edgy and musically stretching, and both were an ever-revolving door of young modern jazz musicians as modes and moods rapidly changed during a fresh period of experimentation. Beginning with a live session at The Five Spot, New York City, November 9, 1965, Lonnie's time as a Jazz Messenger was fairly short-term, only lasting until a 3-gig engagement at The Village Vanguard 26–28 April 1966; by May 1966 his position was filled by Chick Corea. Unfortunately no recordings exist of this period.

In May 1967 Lonnie returned to working with Roland Kirk for the album sessions for "Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith" (Verve,1967) before continuing his career as pianist for a year with drummer Max Roach (although once again no recordings were made of this lineup).

Following this stint, Lonnie moved to Pharaoh Sanders ensemble early in 1968, a group Sanders had set up on the death of John Coltrane the previous year. Fiercely improvisational, Sanders pushed the band to the creatively boundaries of free jazz, recording three of Sanders finest recordings "Karma" (Impulse, 1969), "Jewels of Thought" (Impulse, 1970) and "Thembi" (Impulse, 1971), together with 1969 recording sessions not released until 1973 as "Izipho Zam" (Strata East, 1973). It is at this point that Lonnie began experimenting with electric keyboards:

On Thembi, that was the first time that I ever touched a Fender Rhodes electric piano. We got to the studio in California — Cecil McBee had to unpack his bass, the drummer had to set up his drums, Pharoah had to unpack all of his horns. Everybody had something to do, but the piano was just sitting there waiting. I saw this instrument sitting in the corner and I asked the engineer, 'What is that?' He said, 'That’s a Fender Rhodes electric piano.' I didn’t have anything to do, so I started messing with it, checking some of the buttons to see what I could do with different sounds. All of a sudden I started writing a song and everybody ran over and said, 'What is that?' And I said, 'I don’t know, I’m just messing around.' Pharoah said, 'Man, we gotta record that. Whatcha gonna call it?' I’d been studying astral projections and it sounded like we were floating through space so I said let’s call it 'Astral Traveling.' That’s how I got introduced to the electric piano.

During this period Lonnie also backed Sanders vocalist Leon Thomas on his first album "Spirits Known and Unknown" (Flying Dutchman, 1969).

Having already guested on Gato Barbieri's 1969 album "The Third World" (Philips, 1969), Lonnie joined Barbieri's band from 1971-73. Barbieri had by then begun to temper his free jazz excursions of the 1960s with softer Afro-Cuban and South American textures in his music, which would influence Lonnie's playing into new directions in the following years. Lonnie played on a number of albums marking this transition, "Fenix" (Philips, 1971), the critically acclaimed live album "El Pampero" (Flying Dutchman, 1972), "Bolivia" (Flying Dutchman, 1973) and "Under Fire" (Flying Dutchman, 1973). One further recording, "El Gato" (Flying Dutchman, 1975), was released after Lonnie had again moved on; from 1972 Lonnie had also taking up the invitation to join Miles Davis band on electric keyboards. Over the next year, during an intense period of studio recording by Davis, various line-ups laid down a considerable number of sessions, which were later inter-cut and remixed for final release. Miles Davis insisted that Lonnie learned to play the organ for the sessions: "Miles gave me two nights to learn how to make music on the thing. Miles liked to introduce new sounds in a surprising way — that's how he produced such innovative, fresh music.". Lonnie's contributions appear on "On The Corner" (Columbia, 1973) and the track "Ife" on "Big Fun" (Columbia, 1974).