A quarter of a century between albums is a stretch, but at the age of 82, Lonnie Liston Smith had long ago abandoned the idea of adding to his stellar back catalogue. A keyboard revolutionary in the 1970s, he had played with Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis before carving a career as a jazz-funk maestro and champion of cosmic jazz.
Smith has now become the latest veteran to be tempted back to the studio by producers Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of Jazz Is Dead (a name intended to prove the opposite). As graduates of the hip-hop generation, the pair are well aware of the way Smith’s grooves and riffs have been lucratively sampled by the likes of Jay Z. Their working methods remain simple, feeding ideas and motifs to their chosen star alongside a rhythm section and adding more later.
The nine pieces here capture the vibrancy and allure of Smith’s playing, whether it’s electric grooves such as What May Come and Fête, or complex, discordant piano pieces such as Gratitude. As the electric swirls on Cosmic Changes attest, it’s all infected with 70s idealism, and the soaring vocals of Loren Oden recall those of Donald Byrd and Stevie Wonder. The magic remains in place.
