Interview with Lonnie Liston Smith

At this time we need Spiritual vibrations more than ever.
I had the great opportunity to get in touch with one of the great jazzmen
who was and still is very Spiritual in his way of thinking and exploring
jazz.
As you have read in my introduction to Lonnie Liston Smith he was very into
that Spiritual, Creative, Astral , Deep movement, along with Pharoah
Sanders and Leon Thomas (Peace be with him) among others...
As I knew, I discovered a Deep Man, a great musician and a new friend !
He also gave me some unpublished pics that you will see for the first time
here in JAZZMOTEL!!
This is what Lonnie Liston Smith and I talked about...










Lonnie , How have you defined your style, your piano playing style?
Which pianists or musicians have inspired your vision of jazz music?


I always wanted to develop a universal style of music, and when I am playing the piano and keyboards I try to be aware of the importance of using space. Miles Davis told me one time that musicians don't realize that what they don't play is just as important as what they do play.Miles Davis and John Coltrane inspired my vision of music the most!  Also Debussy and Ravel inspired my vision of music.





One of your first important experiences was with Art Blakey, thanks to the help of the player Mickey Bass . Tell me about your experience with Art Blakey and the great jazz scene .

Working with Art Blakey was a great experience because each member of the group would write songs and Art would not come to the rehearsals until we had learned all of the new songs, then he would come in and sat behind the drums and play each song as if he had heard these songs before.  It was amazing how Art could interpret these songs so quickly.




Another drummer who helped to increase your credibility was Max Roach. You played with him for about a year and then later recorded two albums with Rahsaan Roland, right up to 1968 when you met Pharoah Sanders.
what is changed after the encounter with Sanders ?



Working with Max Roach was quite a different experience because Max played in so many different time signatures (5/4, 7/4, etc.).  People don't realize Max Roach taught Dave Brubeck and his band how to play in 5/4 time. When I played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk I had to play all types of music.  Rahsaan liked to play the blues, dixieland music and also straight-ahead jazz.





That period was very much influenced by the spiritual slipstream left over by Coltrane. You started to experiment with the electric piano indian tambura and composed a few songs that later became defined as Cosmic Jazz .
Tell me about that sort of energy that influenced you, Leon Thomas, Pharoah Sanders and many other musicians of that period…
“Thembi “, "Upper Egypt", "Karma", "Creator Has a Master Plan", "Summun, Bukmun, Umyun", and "Jewels of Thought” were a sort of astral journey of jazz.
What kind of feeling was there in that period and how did jazz music blend with spirituality?



Leon Thomas, Pharoah Sanders and myself developed a whole new concept of jazz.  I wrote most of the music for the group when we were together.  We would stretch the music as far out as we could, and then bring the music back down to earth.I wrote "Astral Traveling" for Pharoah and that song really represented "Cosmic Jazz".  In that song I tried to capture the feeling of floating through space.
I want my music to heal all of the problems on the planet Earth, like wars, man's inhumanity to mankind, because if we don't learn to live in peace and harmony, then this whole planet will be destroyed.



You also performed on the recordings of Miles Davis’ “On The Corner” and “Big Fun”. How much did your closeness to Miles contribute to your evolution in jazz, a music that was becoming evermore experimental and open to certain influences and experimentations with electric instruments and free expressions in music.




Working with Miles Davis was the "ultimate"!  Miles was a musical genius on stage and off stage!  Every night working with Miles I had to be very creative because Miles had me playing a new keyboard, "The Yamaha Electric Organ".  He wanted to hear a new sound and the only time I had an opportunity to play the new keyboard was on stage. 




In 1974, after the experience with Gato Barbieri and the Flying Dutchman label, Bob Thiele, who had supported the album by Sanders, helped you to obtain your first contract for an album as a solo artist and leader. That album was “Astral Travelling”
Than the Cosmic Echoes were born .
Did that album allow you to record what you had in mind at the time?



After working with Miles Davis I formed "The Cosmic Echoes".  I saw that Miles had hooked up a lot of pedals to his trumpet, like the wah-wah pedal, etc..  So
I decided to hook up all these different pedals to my Fender Electric Piano and that's how I discovered the Lonnie Liston Smith Sound on the Electric Piano. 



How did the passage to Jazz Funk happen? Which sounds inspired this move?
In 1975, with “Expansions” you defined your style by creating a sort of Funky Jazz, very fresh but still maintaining your spiritual and astral vein. What can you tell me about this album?

After I recorded "EXPANSIONS", The Entire World labeled me "THE GODFATHER
OF JAZZ FUSION FUNK".



“Visions of a New World” and “Renaissance” were the next step, electric piano with echo and wah-wah effects, percussions and funk. In all of your work percussions are always much involved and you use more than one percussionists on one album.
How important were the percussions to you sound?



The sounds of different percussion instruments are very important because the sounds are so cosmic and universal, so I try to use percussion instruments as much as possible.

thanks Lonnie .

Thanks JAZZMOTEL Peace

Introducing Lonnie Liston Smith

Lonnie Liston Smith The acoustic pianist/electric keyboardist was born in Richmond, VA, on December 28, 1940, should not be confused with soul-jazz organist Lonnie Smith (see also Jazzmotel interview ).. . During the '60s or early '70s, he had been a sidemen for Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Gato Barbieri, singer Betty Carter, and trumpeter Miles Davis. During Davis collaborations Smith signed with producer Bob Thiele's RCA-distributed Flying Dutchman label and recorded his first album as a leader, Astral Traveling (which Thiele produced).


In the early 70’s He formed the Cosmic Echoes and started he’s new adventure as a Leader .
Hes music as we saw for the Sanders / Leon Thomas period were very influenced by a kind of Cosmic Peaceful Spiritualism also finded in the post-bop works of space explorers like Coltrane, Sanders, Yusef Lateef, McCoy Tyner almongst all .
The first Cosmic Echoes lineup,included George Barron (soprano and tenor sax), Joe Beck (guitar), Cecil McBee (bass), David Lee, Jr. (drums), James Mtume (percussion), Sonny Morgan (percussion), Badal Roy (tabla drums), and Geeta Vashi (tamboura). Astral Traveling .The first Cosmic Echoes was an instrumental work , later on Lonnie added a vocalist to the Cosmic Echoes: his brother Donald Smith.
Their essential discography include Astral Traveling -- 1974's Thiele-produced Cosmic Funk, 1975's Expansions, 1975's Visions of a New World, 1976's Reflections of a Golden Dream, and 1977's Renaissance, all of which were on either Flying Dutchman or RCA proper.Lonnie run now Hes own Company called Loveland records .

David Axelrod live at Royal Festival Hall

These are my sensations , my feelings about an incredible DVD concert I received from David Axelrod son , together with the Jazzmotel interview answers I send Him some time ago ...
David Axelrod is for me a living legend , His way to see the music is for me so Deep and Intelligent that I was in trouble to ask Him questions for the interview you gonna read very soon ..
It was like a kind of interview to Enoch or Moses or some other "Patriarcas" as we say in Italy .
I was very happy to get the oportunity to make a Jazzmotel style review , I really hope you enjoy it and starts , if you are not already doing it , dig into Axelrod discography cause you will find many many archetypes , style lessions and pure sensations and Deep conversations and interpretations ,
Belive me !



DAVID AXELROD LIVE AT ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL

introduction:

When I received this DVD/CD after contacting Dana Axelrod for an interview with his father (the genius David Axelrod) I decided there and then to write a sort of review so as to give my contribution and spread the word for this disc which again confirms the genius of this composer and arranger who has contributed so much to the history of Jazz.

To start with a little history , David Axelrod was born in Los Angeles in 1936. He begins early to write complex scores, orchestrations and arrangements which will bring him to define that Jazz-Funk sound with rock undertones that will make him one of the most in demand arrangers and producers of the jazz, soul, funk and rock scene from 1959 through 1999 and the present day.

Cannonball Adderley, Nat Adderley, Funk Inc., Lou Rawls, Don Randy, David McCallum, Clara Ward, The Electric Prunes and Letta Mbulu are a few of the artists that Axelrod has produced and arranged , Capitol, Warner Bros, and Prestige a few of the labels with which he has collaborated.




His records have helped to create the Hip-Hop and Trip-Hop sound and have been the source of inspiration for a new generation of musicians, influencing the styles of electronic and contemporary music amongst others.
David Axelrod is considered a genius for his interpretations of the works of William Blake and for creating a sound that to this day is contemporary, or rather, timeless.

The first thing I thought before viewing is: “Has Axelrod kept that lean sparse sound, those linear rhythms of “Song of Innocence” and “Song of Experience”?
The answer is yes , for sure ...

The chosen venue for this event is the Royal Festival Hall in London, a structure of modern architecture, situated between Waterloo and Hungerford Bridge which highlights the English passion for the past, the present and the future. A perfect combination for the music of David Axelrod.

The Hall is buzzing .Musicians, DJ’s, people form the entertainment industry and ordinary fans are waiting for an event that hasn’t been seen in 25 years; David Axelrod will direct an orchestra of 26 musicians and will perform the songs that have helped to create his legend.
Axelrod looks like a high preacher and from his “pulpit” starts to introduce this event recorded in 2005.

The Orchestra is composed of 6 Violins, 2 Violas, 2 Cellos, an Oboe, a Cor Anglais/Piccolo, 2 Saxes, a Clarinet, 2 Trumpets, a Trombone and a solid rhythm section, essential for the Axelrod sound: Double-Bass, Drums, 2 Guitars, Percussion, Vibraphone, Acoustic piano, Electric piano, Organ and a Harpsichord.

The concert begins with a Psycho Jazz re-arrangement of “Paint it Black”, especially created for this event as a tribute to the land of the Rolling Stones. From this first piece you quickly begin to understand and in the same time you have the confirm of the ability to re-arrange that Axelrod possesses. The piece is practically unrecognizable and incredible.

Axelrod seems almost to enjoy directing the orchestra. I have to say that from what I see he his able to put the musicians at ease. On the other hand, to be directed by a living legend can’t be an everyday occurrence, and for this reason the orchestra (composed of young but very competent musicians) shows good participation and perception , moving to the music and at times almost dancing to the “Beats of Axe”. Axelrod introduces The Edge "sampled by DR Dre " by stating “I hate samples” (a note to the lovers of sampled Axelrod)...



The show’s setlist comprises all his compositions from the late 60’s and early 70’s. Songs like “Holy Thursday” and “Unizen”, form “Song of Innocence”, “London”, “The Human Abstract” from “Song of Experience”, and onto “Holy Are You” taken from the album “Release from the Oath” by the “Electric Prunes” sung by the fantastic voice of an emotional and passionate Richard Ashcroft.



“The Sick Rose”, “Smile”, “Tensity” and “So Low” the only new Axelrod piece, brings London and its theater down in a nocturnal atmosphere reminiscent of Blake.
The concert is brought to an end with “Norwegian Wood”, another tribute to an English band, which confirms the deep respect that Axelrod holds for this country.
The whole concert is an alternation of straight Funky Beats , full Orchestration patterns and Deep inpirational moments wich is the perfect main line of all the best Axelrod works .
“David Axelrod Live at The Royal Festival Hall” will contribute to further your collection with intelligent, profound, baroque and timeless orchestral sounds.

I suggest you go to the Axelrod website and maybe commence your collection of his jazz works.

I hope this my review helps you to know a little more of this incredible Artist .
Be ready for the interview wich is coming pretty soon !
Love from Jazzmotel

JAZZMOTEL BELIEVE IN FREEDOM !

introducing Mr Terry Callier

Terry Callier was Born in Chicago were also Curtis Mayfield, Jerry Butler, Ramsey Lewis and more was .Terry Callier began studying the piano at the age of three, he writed his first songs at the age of 11.
In the College period , he learned to play guitar and setting up residency at a Chicago .
In that city he coming to the attention of Chess Records arranger Charles Stepney, who produced Callier's debut single "Look at Me Now" , it was 1962.
In 1964, Callier met Prestige label producer Samuel Charters, and a year later they went in the studio to record his LP "The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier "( Prestige ).
The album went unreleased before finally appearing in 1968.
With his friend Jerry Butler's they starts the Chicago Songwriters Workshop and composed material for local labels including Chess and Cadet, one of the famous was the Dells' 1972 smash "The Love We Had Stays on My Mind."
Stepney, now a producer at Cadet, release Callier 1973's "Occasional Rain", an incredible fusion of folk and jazz which laid the groundwork forexplored on the following year's "What Color Is Love?"
Callier works were not so commercial, and after 1975's LP "I Just Can't Help Myself" he finished his relation with Cadet.
In 1978 he starts a new relation with Elektra's Jazz Fusion of Don Mizell, they release the orchestrated "Fire on Ice" followed in 1979's by "Turn You to Love", with this album he cracked the pop charts with the single "Sign of the Times" known thanks the legendary WBLSFM DJ Frankie Crocker. After Electra he largely disappeared from music in the early '80s.
Callier continued composing songs, till 1991 when he received a telephone call from Eddie Piller, the boss of he U.K. label Acid Jazz. Piller ask the permission to rerelease Callier's littleknown single from 1983, "I Don't Want to See Myself (Without You)" and the rest is history ...
Callier stars to collaborate , touring and release his new works after decades of stop .
Now Terry Callier is still going great and his consider most important exponebt of Folk-Jazz sound .

Terry Callier Discography :

New Folk Sound of Terry Callier (1964)
Occasional Rain (1972)
What Coloor is love 1973
I Just Can't Help Myself 1975
Fire on Ice 1978
Turn you to love 1979

Interview to Terry Callier

After meet him in Milan and get back to him at Jazz Cafe in London , Mr Terry Callier pleased me with this interview that confirm Callier as a Great musician and a Great man.
Thanks Terry .







Wich were your favoutrites musicians in the beginning , who influenced more your taste and style ?


In the very beginning I was influences by doo-wah (sometimes referred to as 'doo-wop' ) groups like Sonny Til and the Orioles, the Spaniels,  the Ravens, the Diamonds, The 4 Seasons and gospel artists like the Soul Stirers with Sam Cooke, Sister Rosetta Thorpe and Rev. James Cleveland.  After I started listnening to jazz, my favorites were John Coltrane, Miles, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Oscar Peterson, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Ray Charles and many, many others.


When you met Charles Stepney from Chess records Terry Callier thing started , how did you met him ? and how it was important for the starting of your career .
 
I first met Charles Stepney at a recording session for Chess records.  He was the arranger for a group of singles that included "Look At Me Now".   The producer was Esmond Edwards and the musicians included Paul Serrano on trumpet and Phil Upchurch on guitar.  It was my first recording session and more or less set the tone for the rest of my career.
Then with Prestige Records your first album "New Folk Sound of Terry Callier "....
I was playing at a club in Chicago called 'Mother Blues' and the owner of the spot introduced me to a producer from Prestige Records names Sam Charters.  He asked me if I was ready to do an album and naturally I said I was.  He told me the budget would be small but I could use two other musicians.  I had been listening to a lot of early Coltrane on record where he had experimented with two bass players and I told Sam that was what I wanted to do.  So the instrumentation on "New Folk Sound" was acoustic guitar, vocals and two acoustic bass players.


In 1973 Occasional Rain started a kind of Folk-Jazz thing , how this blend did born ?
 
Again, this was influenced by Coltrane.  He had passed away by this time and I was listening to a lot of Miles Davis, so he was also influential in terms allowing musicians to play what they felt and approaching the music as a group project.


"Orinary Joe" and "Look at me now " are 2 songs that are very" Callier ", please can you tell me some things happened during the writing , recording of these 2 great songs ?
I mean the feeling , the vibe ...
 
"Look At Me Now" was among the first songs that I recordsd for Chess records.  I had been writing songs since I was 13 years old and this was one that the Chess brothers liked.  I was trying to convince my mother that a career in music wouldn't be so bad and I was more or less talking directily to her . . . "Well my mama thinks that I just fake it -- 'Cause I do things she don't understand ..."  Eventually she did
accept the fact that I wasn't going to be a doctor or lawyer.

 "Ordinary Joe" took me the longest time to write of any other song that ever happened to me.  I was carrying the main riff around for three or four years before I had a clue as to what it was going to be about o what it was going to say.  Then one day it just fell on me line by line.  I didn't know what the title was until the last verse had written itself.  I never like to say I wrote this or that because that's not the way it goes down.  Songs just seem to happen to me or more accurately are presented to me from the Creative Source.  I wish I could say more about it but I truly can't . . .

In 1975's I Just Can't Help Myself was le last record with Cadet , than you passed with Electra under the head of Don Mizell .
Wich were the differences of Callier sound betwen this two labels ?

 
The first ablum recorded for Elektra ("Fire on Ice") was a continuation of what I had done with Charles Stepney at Chess.  The second album ("Turn You To Love") had a disco influence and one track "Sign of the Times" made the Billboard charts and was used as a them by Frankie Crocker, a well-respected and popular DJ who was broadcasting from New York.


After Electra experience you desapear untill somebody , in 1991 called you to ask the permission to reissue "I Don't Want to See Myself (Without You)" (1983 ).
Acid Jazz movement were born and your new career too .
What can you tell me about this thing , were you surprised ?


I stopped performing in 1983 in order to take care of my daughter.  She called me from California and told me she wanted to live with me in Chicago.  There was no way I could refuse and I knew that music wouldn't provide the kind of things I wanted her to have.  I attended a computer training school (Control Data Institute in Chicago) and eventually was hired as a temporary employee at the University of Chicago.  They made me a staff employee in '85 with paid vacations, healthe insurance and most of the things a single parent needed.
 
I was at my desk a few years later and received a call from Eddie Piller of Acid Jazz Records in London.  He tolld me that "I Don't Want to See Myself Without You" was being played around the UK and asked if we could re-issue the disk.  It took a while for him to convince me it was a genuine offer and we worked out an agreement to put the song out in the UK.  To my suprise, it proved to be quite popular and led to concerts and glub gigs in the UK and Eurpoe.
Then you started touring , recording and collaborations with lots of musicians and DJ 's ...
The first artist I worked with was Beth Orton.  Then there was 4Hero, Zero Seven, Koop, Ian Poole, Paul Weller - - - I'm forgetting some important names here and I apologize for that.


What you think about this rebirth of 60's and 70's Jazzy music started in late 80's ?


Remixes of jazz recordings from the 60's and 70's exposed that music to a new generation and did the music and the people a lot of good.  There's almost always a method of updating good sounds so they can be appreciated by new listeners.

Whats your plan for the future ?

The future is difficult to see.  I'd like a chance to release new forms of music with new ideas including Jazz, R&B, trip-hop and hip-hop influences.  Hopefully, this will take place soon.  Thank you for the interest . . .

RIGHT ON ! The Last Poets

Everything started when two Poets and a percussionist decided to become spiritually and artistically responsible for the beginning of a movement born for continuing the African oral traditions but above all for becoming reason bringers to the Afro-American population. David Nelson, Gylan Kain, Charles Davis aka Abiodun, Raymond Hurrey aka Nilija Obabi, Felipe Luciano, Umar Bin Hassan, Sulieman El-Hadi and Jalaluddin Mansur Nurridin (Jalal) are the most famous pf those who would go on to become ‘The Last Poets’. It all started in New York in 1969 when Nelson and Davis, whilst celebrating the birthday of Malcolm X in a park, decided to form a collective for reading poetry continuing the African verbal method, used this time though for putting in evidence the situation of the black social classes in America during that period. The first idea was that of creating some musical bases over which you could read writings, even if not all of the Poets managed to sing in the same way, thus it was decided to make up a neutral base of percussion bongos as a background. “Are You Ready Nigger? You Got To Be Ready” was the first ‘message’ from the trio that was made up of Nelson, Kain and Oyewole and that is how the legend started. The ‘Last Poets’ was chosen as the name through an inspiration from a poem by K. William Kgostile from South Africa: “This wind you hear is the birth of memory. When the moment hatches in times womb, there is no more art talk. The only poem you’ll hear will be the spear point pivoted in the punctured marrow of the villain, the timeless native son dancing like crazy to the retrieved rhythms of desire fading into memory” to which Nelson added: “Therefore, we are the Last Poets of the World”. At that point the ‘Last Poets’ were officially born. The formation was, and still is today, very elastic and interchangeable, Jalal for example entered on the second album after being in prison for refusing to take part in the Vietnam war. The first recordings were on the Douglas label of the jazz producer Alan Douglas. The first album “The Last Poets” was a manifestation against the white oppression as well as the passiveness and lack of wanting to create and fight back by the blacks… “The Last Poets” Douglas 1970, “This Is Madness” Douglas 1971, “Chastisement” Douglas 1972, “Hustlers Convention” (with Jalal Nuriddin recording as ‘lightning rod’ Douglas 1973, “At Last” Blue Thumb 1974, “Delights Of The Garden” Celluloid 1975, “Jazzoetry” Celluloid 1975, “Oh My People” Celluloid 1985, “Freedom Express” Celluloid 1991, “Be Bop Or Be Dead” (Umar Bin Hassan with Abiodun Oyewole) Axiom/Island 1993, “25 Years” (Abiodun Oyewole with Umar Bin Hassan) Rykodisc 1994, “Holy Terror” Rykodisc 1995 and “Time Has Come” Mouth Almighty/Mercury 1997 are just a few of their records from the 70’s onwards. As the years passed the sound of the Last Poets became ever more structured and the support band changed regularly characterising every time their sound which was always different. In 1971 “This Is Madness” got the Last Poets added to the ‘Counter Intelligence Programming lists’ of Nixon… some of them were put under surveillance and were also interrogated regularly by the FBI. In 1972 Jalal added the jazz drummer Sulieman El-Hadi to the band who introduced a jazzy sound, thus “Jazzoetry” was born, poetry over a jazz base. In 1973 Jalal, under the ‘Lighting Rod’ pseudonym (already used in 1969 for recording with Jimmy Hendrix and Buddy Miles “Doriella Du Fontaine”) recorded an album entitled “Hustlers Convention” that, supported by bands like Kool And The Gang, Buddy Miles and many other musicians of the Funk/Blues scene consecrated definitely that which today we call RAP. The Last Poets carried on, as they still are today, even in smaller numbers or also as solo artists like Jalal who has recorded for other lesser known labels… Today Umar Bin Hassan and Abiodun Oyewole continue on their own whist Jalal has moved to England in the 80’s where he keeps his career going at www.grandfatherofrap.com coming out some time ago with the album “Science Friction” for the English label Subtonix as the singer Bernard Alexandre. These so called precursors of modern day RAP have had their albums sampled by many rappers and hip hop bands: “Run Nigger” from their very first self titled album was sampled by NWA, Hurricane and Paris, “Niggers Are Afraid Of Revolution” by Brand Nubian and Third Eye, “When The Revolution Comes” was used by Notorius BIG in his “Party And Bullshit”. Galliano, the first Acid Jazz rapper was clearly inspired by Jalal who also contributed on the recording of “Acid Jazz And Other Illicit Grooves” in 1988, a manifestation of the first English scene of this genre. Today these Poets of civil rights, black and non, are considered guru’s and their albums are collected by lovers of rap, jazz and also be-bop! To finish off I would like to leave you with a couple of lines from a letter that Jalal wrote to me some time ago: “The people require affection, protection and direction and there are eight points on a compass, the east and the west are only two”. Peace all over the land.