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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Recent Listening: Dr. Lonnie Smith

July 12, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

Dr. Lonnie Smith, Spiral (Palmetto). Smith is a doctor in the same way that Captain Beefheart is a captain, but I’m willing to concede him the title because he knows how to make you feel good. Of the Dr. Lonnie S. Spiral.jpggeneration of post-bop organists who followed Jimmy Smith, he survived his near-namesake Lonnie Liston Smith, Don Patterson, Jimmy McGriff, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Shirley Scott, Jack McDuff and Jimmy Smith himself. At 68, he carries on the tradition employing the Hammond B-3 not only as a blues dynamo—although he is capable of that—but also caressing melodies, as in his title composition and an unlikely choice, the 1963 international pop hit “Sukiyaki,” which he somehow manages to divest of its corn.
Smith exemplifies his tasteful treatment of song book standards in a medium-tempo stroll through Frank Loesser’s “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” making thoughtful use of space to let the organ and the listener breathe. With Jamire Williams’s drums roiling and guitarist Jonathan Kreisbserg playing ostinato patterns, Smith makes Rodgers and Hart’s “I Didn’t Know What Time it Was” an exercise in compelling forward motion. He flirts with ¾ time in “Sweet and Lovely” without fully committing to it. The resulting rhythmic tension develops a push that energizes his and Kreisberg’s solos. “Beehive,” with its buzzing air of menace, would be perfect for the opening credits in a Stanley Kubrick movie starring Jack Nicholson. Smith takes Slide Hampton’s “Frame for the Blues” at a metronome pace of about 56 that would seem glacial if he and his sidemen didn’t invest it with powerhouse oomph and blues feeling that make it, to these ears, the album’s stealth piece de resistance.

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Comments

  1. Rob D says

    July 12, 2010 at 4:59 pm

    I enjoy your reviews. You have a way of saying your piece without getting overly critical.
    I am reading the collection of Whitney Baillet’s collected jazz writings and while it’s never a good idea to read large chunks of something like that in one sitting..I had to. It’s due back at the library and I have been too busy to read.LOL..
    He was a first rate writer for sure. I appreciate that. And opinions form over many years and can change dramatically. I am just amazed that in a career that started in the 50’s and lasted till 2001 that he seems to have missed so much of the modern stuff and paid way too much attention to swing era greats who were well past their time in the sun. There’s almost nothing on ECM artists other than Keith Jarrett. Joe Henderson. The Blue Note roster such as Lee Morgan, Andrew Hill, Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard are mostly (sometimes entirely) absent. Ornette gets a few nice words but there’s nothing of substance and length.
    Anyway, It makes me realize anew that the advice of the little old guy who owned the record shop in back of the appliance store in my old hometown was right…Listen with your OWN ears and don’t let a critic decide for you. They are just human beings who bring their own prejudices to the table irregardless of their knowledge level.
    Hope this doesn’t start a war…wink….I really enjoy Whitney’s writings and Ihave been writing down the names of recrords he liked etc. Just an observation.
    PS
    if he mentions that Sid Catlett was/is the world’s greatest drummer again though…lol…He does it a lot.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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