“0H wow, it’s been that long?” smiles Lonnie Liston Smith, when reminded that his new album will be his first for 25 years. He’s never stopped playing – he has both a Steinway grand and Yamaha electric piano in his home in Glen Allen, Virginia – but until Jazz Is Dead came calling, he’d become disillusioned with the process of making records. “A lot of the younger kids, they got studios in the house, but I’m not used to the Pro Tools and all that.”
Not that Smith, a very sprightly 82, is dismissive of newer techniques. Jazz Is Dead’s Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, both hip-hop producers, will have known Smith’s cosmic jazz-funk as popular sample fodder – and the keyboardist is overjoyed that younger generations have come to his music that way. “One thing that blew my mind: I was in the studio one day and said, ‘I want to play something pretty.’ And so I wrote this song ‘A Garden Of Peace’ on the grand piano, then I overdubbed the colours from the electric piano. No drums, no bass, just something beautiful. Years later, Jay-Z sampled it on ‘Dead Presidents’ and it just took off. Mary J Blige had a big hit with it, ‘Take Me As I Am’. So you never know what might happen in life, it’s amazing!” SAM RICHARDS
ROLAND KIRK
NOW PLEASE DON’T YOU CRY, BEAUTIFUL EDITH
VERVE, 1967
Originally from Richmond, Virginia, Smith graduates from Baltimore’s Morgan State University in 1961 before eventually following the music to New York City. After playing in Betty Carter’s band, he makes his first recordings with the force of nature that
