From: Bob Davis (earthjuice_at_prodigy.net)
Date: 2004-02-25 06:16:16
Ya know, sometimes life can take a funny turn....
Last Saturday night while I was at the show in Randallstown, MD I went backstage and entered
Lonnie Liston Smith's dressing room. I introduced myself to Mr. Smith and instead of thinking
of something witty, profound or intelegent to say, all I could think of at that moment was...
"I AM A HUGE FAN OF YOURS, IN FACT I HAVE A WEB PAGE ON MY SITE ABOUT YOU..."
http://www.soul-patrol.com/jazz/lonnie.htm
<a href="http://www.soul-patrol.com/jazz/lonnie.htm"> LONNIE LISTON SMITH ON SOUL-PATROL: The
"VISION" of Lonnie Liston Smith </a>
I spoke to him for a few more moments and then walked away, feeling somewhat embarresed
because I hadn't thought of anything witty, profound or intelegent to say.
I thought to myself...
(what must he think of me???)
Later that evening Micheal Henderson more formally introduced us by saying...
"This is Bob Davis, from Soul-Patrol, this is the brotha I was telling you about..."
Of course that made me feel better and then we got down to a conversation about his music.
I said, maaaaannnnn...
You don't know....
We talked about the buttFUNK kicking groove of the song EXPANSIONS and the whole concept of
"KOZMIC FUNK"...
Lonnie said...
"The whole point was to first get people moving and grooving on the dance floor and then to
get them to think..."
"To think about the world around them and expand their minds to open up to the possibilities
for the future..."
I said...
"That was kinda what I thought, I was a college student at the time and to me and for my
partners, we thought that the whole experience was kinda designed to "suck us in with the mean
FUNK grooves" and then force us to first listen to the melodic jazz and then finally to
THINK..."
Lonnie said...
"You got that right..." :)
I said...
That's what the groove called KOZMIC FUNK was all about, it was "afrocentric" before the word
"afrocentric" had even been invented, combining the funk, jazz & afro-egyptian sounds together
in a way that was inspirational and forced you to pay attention to the mind expanding messages
of love and positive energy expressed in the songs...."
And then I realized...
How foolish I must have sounded...
Here I was trying to provide a "two dolla" definition about the term "KOZMIC FUNK", when I had
standing right in front of me the man who INVENTED THE DAMN TERM COSMIC FUNK, back in 1974 on
the LP called....
"COSMIC FUNK"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000005MLV/qid=1077677962/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/002-
5602962-6668826?v=glance&s=music
<a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000005MLV/qid=1077677962/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_
5/002-5602962-6668826?v=glance&s=music"> "COSMIC FUNK"</a>
anyhow....
The concert was OFF THE HOOK.
Mr Lonnie Liston Smith played his butt off.
Awesome keyboards.
The whole show was a serious "flashback" in time for me.
The audience certainly dug it as well, people got up and started dancing on the fast songs.
And on the slow songs, people just sat as if they were in a trance, as they "nodded/bobbed"
their heads along with the beats of the music.
The music was sooo damn melodic it made one think of a clear night in Egypt, at the base of
the pyrimids.
I was caught up in a deep melodic and nostalgic tip.
It felt just like 1976, here I was listening to live music that was by design
introspective....
And then suddenly the clock fast forwarded to 2004 as Lonnie Liston Smith reminded uas all of
the true reason why we had all gathered there on this evening...
He introduced the young musicians from Randallstown, MD who had by now joined him on stage.
They joined right in and kept that serious "KOZMIC FUNK" groove going.
And THAT was a truly impressive thing for me to bear witness to.
There it was, laid out in front of me, clear as day...
"GREAT BLACK MUSIC FROM THE ANCIENT TO THE FUTURE..."
(right on stage)
One of the things that was also made clear to me are the "synergies" of some of the artists of
the "underground soul" (ex Marlon Saunders, Ascendant and others) movement and the
ideals/aspirations of 1970's "KOZMIC FUNK".
That pretty much explains for me why I like some of that music so much
anyhow...
The following Monday morning as I was getting ready for work, my phone rang.
I picked it up and heard a voice say...
"I'm trying to reach Bob Davis, this is Lonnie Liston Smith..."
(that blew my mind.....lol)
And then he said...
"Bob, I just wanted to let you know that I visited your site and read the things that you
wrote about me, so I had to call you to thank you for putting up that web page about me..."
http://www.soul-patrol.com/jazz/lonnie.htm
<a href="http://www.soul-patrol.com/jazz/lonnie.htm"> LONNIE LISTON SMITH ON SOUL-PATROL: The
"VISION" of Lonnie Liston Smith </a>
"As soon as I went to the main page of your site and I heard the voice of Malcolm X, I knew
that I was in the right place..."
We then went on to discuss a miriad of topics such as:
Smooth Jazz
Miles Davis
Stax Records
Afrocentric ideas
Sam Moore
The 1970's
Clear Channel
Why American Blacks don't support their own music
etc.
needless to say I was late for work.....lol
(and of course I have been on a "high" all week long)
We will be hearing more from and about Lonnie Liston Smith here on Soul-Patrol
(I have a feeling that he wouldn't want it any other way)
_________
Bob Davis
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