Dr Lonnie Smith RIP...

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

."Dr Lonnie Smith, an NEA Jazz Master known for his dynamism and wizardry on the Hammond B3 organ, died Tuesday. He was 79 years old.

His death was confirmed on Twitter by Blue Note Records. A spokesperson for the label said the cause of death was pulmonary fibrosis, a form of lung disease..."

RIP.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

George Benson with Lonnie Smith Qrt, when both were "jazz". Or more straight ahead. Ronnie Cuber on baritone? Kicks along... "The Cooker";

http://youtu.be/cNb-5pBBL_g

[Ian Thumwood]

I was playng Dr Lonnie Smith's recent live recording "All in my mind" which is pretty impressive and features a programme largely made up of jazz standards by the likes of Wayne Shorter, Tadd Dameron and Freddie Hubbard. The trio is very impressive but the cover of Paul Simon's "Fifty ways to leave your lover" is worth the price of the albim alone. The tune is played over a New Orleans style groove and really cooks.

I think that the B3 organ has a lot of baggage that comes with it which is probably only equalled by gypsy jazz insofar that the expectations and the factors that set the standard are different from so much other jazz. There is often a barometer regarding funkiness and groove which I always think can lead to a crossover with Soul and offers an interersting parallel with alot of Fusion. If you like, you can almost see a lot of organ-related jazz music as a precursor to Fusion and a trawl through Smith's early discography is quite surprising how close he came. The newer disc i have been playing is pretty much straight-ahead and has the effect of wishing you had been at this gig. it makes you wonder what was not included on the record. The Doctor excels at playing at different dynamics and I think that this record is really good. I wish I had discovered this musician earlier.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think that the B3 organ has a lot of baggage that comes with it which is probably only equalled by gypsy jazz insofar that the expectations and the factors that set the standard are different from so much other jazz. There is often a barometer regarding funkiness and groove which I always think can lead to a crossover with Soul and offers an interesting parallel with a lot of Fusion. If you like, you can almost see a lot of organ-related jazz music as a precursor to Fusion.

I remember Joe Zawinul saying much the same, contrasting his and Miles Davis's eventual moves into Fusion on the one hand with Guitar-based Chicago Blues, Cream, Hendrix on the other. Given McLaughlin's involvements with Miles's bands at the time suggests interesting links via Psychedelia, with the link to Indian scales, instruments and techniques: where does one place Mahavishnu, as a one-off development around J McL's personality, or relate it towards other developments, eg Don Cherry, Oregon, etc? Maybe one should factor this angle in or is it a little off topic for this thread discussion?

[Joseph K]

I remember Joe Zawinul saying music the same, contrasting his and Miles Davis's eventual moves into Fusion on the one hand with Guitar-based Chicago Blues, Cream, Hendrix on the other. Given McLaughlin's involvements with Miles's bands at the time suggests interesting links via Psychedelia, with the link to Indian scales, instruments and techniques: where does one place Mahavishnu, as a one-off development around J McL's personality, or relate it towards other developments, eg Don Cherry, Oregon, etc? Maybe one should factor this angle in or is it a little off topic for this thread discussion?

It's a little difficult to place Mahavishnu comfortably anywhere - as with much music round that time, and many artists, one album after another might be very different, a 'genre unto itself' to quote another thread. Speaking of organists, I am very fond of Larry Young and of course Joe Zee uses it to great effect on In a Silent Way.

[Serial_Apologist]

It's a little difficult to place Mahavishnu comfortably anywhere - as with much music round that time, and many artists, one album after another might be very different, a 'genre unto itself' to quote another thread. Speaking of organists, I am very fond of Larry Young and of course Joe Zee uses it to great effect on In a Silent Way.

Me too - before Lifetime, but very much with Tony Williams's band - which gig goers reported as having been one of the loudest bands they'd experienced up to that point... and as I remember they really didn't skimp on volume levels in 1969/70! Notwithstanding difficulties in getting Lifetime's sound properly represented in the recordings, I've never minded the distortions, believing them probably to have been part of the raw live experience in any case. Like a lot of experiments with amplification, wah-wah, volume controlled "nudging" and so on at that time, at, er, judicious volume levels, the sonorous blendings of organ, guitar and Jack Bruce's bass guitar, when it came in, constituted emancipations in expression beyond considerations of pitch and meter: interesting in themselves in that in some sense they were parallelled in avant-garde electronic music applying live electronic sound modification, and in improv groups such as Musica Electronica Viva in Italy, and AMM, along with the Music Improvisation Company.

[Ian Thumwood]

I think that you are both missing the point about players like Dr Lonnie Smith whose music had strong roots in to Black popular music as well as gospel. There was a really good article I once read about someone hearing an organ group with some wonderful guitar music emanating from a small restaurant in New York in the late 60s and discovering that the guitarist was Grant Green. It opened up my perception as to how quotidienne this type of jazz was and how it could reach out to a wider audience. The parallels with Fusion only really relate to the fact that , at that time, artists like Jimmy Smith, Dr Lonnie Snith. Brother Jack McDuff, etc were popular artists at a time when jazz could still have a popular following. Whilst they remained true to jazz, these musicians were also savvy to what was happening in Black popular music at the time which is why so many R n' B hits were covered by these formats as well as work by more modern artists such a Sly & the Family Stone. I think it is also true to argue that these Soul Jazz rtists also enjoyed a popular following who were not necessarily hardcore jazz fans.

Labels like Blue Note seemed to churn this stuff out towards the late 60s and early 70s once the label had been sold to Liberty and it ultimately managed to build up it's own heritage and tradition which established a cult following. To my ears, this music has nothing to do whatsoever with groups like Mahavishnu or much of the Fusion produced by groups such as Weather Report or Miles' aggregations. Perhaps the closest Fusion ever got to this vibe was with a record like Herbie Hancock's "Fat Roland Rotunda," even if the harmonic vocabulary employed by HH was lightyears away from where players like the two Smiths were coming from. You can hear just how much popular music was influencing these organ-based groups as early as the early 1960s if you listen to records such as Baby Face Willette's "Face to Face" or Fred Jackson's "Hootin' & tootin'" which recast the vibe of Coltrane's Classic Quartet in to a Soul Jazz context where Motown seemed to have as much of a bearing as 'Trane. An even better example would be someone like Stanley Turrentine with albums like "Hustlin'."

I think there is a tendency to regard jazz as simply being a process of ever increasing complexity and esoteric appeal. However, the Soul Jazz / organ movement is evidence that jazz could also seek to find ways of remaining both populist and relevant. I am a fan of a lot of this kind of music and grew up in an environment where the likes of Jmmy Smith and Stanley Turrentine could be cherished. I am sorry that I have some late to the music of Dr Lonnie Smith. You could argue that the music he was making in the 2010's was little different from what he had been playing in the late 60's. I concede that it is hugely populist but I do not think it matters as it should be judged on it's own criteria and totally succeeds in creating a positive and huigely enjoyable vibe. This music was,in opinion, Jazz's first and best attempt to latch on to Rn' B and the kind of Black popular music that followed in the wake of the demise of the big bands. In fact, you could argue that it had it's antecedents in records like Erskin Hawkin's 1940's hit "After Hours."

Personally, I struggle to make any connection whatsoever with the music by the likes of Dr Lonnie with Jazz - rock or, indeed, Fusion. The connection with Soul and Funk is easier to make and I suppose that the ability to make his music communicate is not too dissimilar to the likes of Stevie Wonder who borrowed from jazz to make popular music. Because these organs groups were also rooted strongly in jazz to begin with, I just feel that the music has become very much part of the mainstream and an idiom many musicians feel compelled to flirt with. Ultimately, the music on Dr Lonnie's album swings really hard and made me wish I had been there in person. I have heard saxophonist James Carter work on this format in a small club and the atmsophere is electric. The music really communicates with the audience and makes a strong connection. I can totally appreciate why so much of this music becomes cultish and why obscure albums from fifty years ago obtain legendary status amongst fans. There are musicians like Larry Young who I would concur with Joe who seemed to bridge this tradition and take on board the intensity of players like Coltrane. Likewise, there are others who were more reluctant go go on such a journey and for whom it was elements such as funkiness, grit and a greasy sound upon which they would have preferred to have been judged. The album I was playing tends to fall between these extremes and I would suggest now fits firmly within the jazz mainstream. I would suggest that it would satisfy all bit the most curmudgeonly of fans whilst unlikely to alien anyone unfamiliar with jazz.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

If you dig around on the Organissimo site (itself an organ trio) you can find some very in depth reviews, arguments, techniques etc of organ based jazz from say Bill Doggett onwards. I used to like this stuff a lot more in my teens (1960s) but listening back, the endless blues licks and devices begin to pale. I like Larry Young and Don Patterson a lot because they moved beyond, Patterson more bop admittedly. Even so the genre was flexible to accommodate sophisticated side players like Pat Martino who came up through it. It would perhaps been interesting to have heard Coltrane when he worked with Jimmy Smith ("that dammed organ in my ears"!) but maybe not that different to others in the role. As Ian said, it was a community grounded combination, clubs like Smalls packed every night to a predominantly black audience who just wanted a good time, and the organ outfits filled the bill efficiently and economically.