Description
*This is a Vinyl LP*
Release Date: 2022
Label: Real Gone Music
Track List
Side A
A1. Cosmic Funk
A2. Footprints
A3. Beautiful Women
Side B
B1. Sais (Egypt)
B2. Peaceful Ones
B3. Naima
Personnel
Congas, Percussion – Lawrence Killian
Drums – Art Gore
Electric Bass – Al Anderson
Percussion – Andrew Cyrille, Doug Hammond, Ron Bridgewater
Acoustic Piano, Electric Piano, Percussion – Lonnie Liston Smith
Soprano Saxophone, Flute, Percussion – George Barron
Vocals, Piano, Flute – Donald Smith
Notes
Gatefold LP features original album art
Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes’ groundbreaking albums for the Flying Dutchman label don’t get the attention from jazz fans that they should. In fact, among the many distinguished alumni of Miles Davis’ fusion bands, keyboardist Smith and his cohorts arguably ran with Davis’ stylistic breakthrough the farthest. In five albums stretching over four years, Smith and the Cosmic Echoes stretched the fusion aesthetic to embrace post-bop modal and spiritual jazz, funk, rock, pop, and even the smooth jazz, quiet storm, and crossover genres.
And if those latter styles raise your traditionalist hackles, Smith imbued all of his records with integrity, vision, and his unique spacy sensibiity; instead of playing it safe or commercial, he fearlessly paved a path for modern jazz musicians to follow (Kamasi Washington, for one, no doubt listened to these records at length). Nestled somewhere between the soul jazz, spiritual jazz, fusion, and post-bop subgenres, Lonnie’s second Flying Dutchman album, 1974″s Cosmic Funk, headed, as the title indicates, in a funkier direction, with Lonnie Liston Smith’s brother Donald contributing smooth vocal stylings to John Coltrane’s ‘Naima’ among other tunes. A transitional work but a fascinating one, with surehanded production once again from Bob Thiele. Features the original gatefold album art’another ‘post-fusion’ masterwork from the Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes!
