LONNIE LISTON SMITH — Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes : Renaissance (review)

LONNIE LISTON SMITH — Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes : Renaissance album cover

Album · 1976 · Fusion

3/5 · 2024-10-14
FunkFreak75

The Echoes are crumbling: falling into the allure and trappings of the more commercially-successful but soulless musics of Earth, Wind & Fire, Bob James, and Freddie Hubbard.

A1. "Space Lady" (6:40) great heavily-processed electric bass coupled with the clavinet and keyboard-generated electronic bass. Lonnie has definitely mastered the strings (must be a new keyboard he's using to generate them). Flute, saxophone and Fender Rhodes are exemplary at adding the smooth textures while the song remains totally grounded in Jazz-Funk. Brilliant! (9.25/10)

A2. "Mardi Gras (Carnival)" (6:02) raucous celebratory music so fittingly titled. Here Lonnie moves back to his acoustic piano while the percussion team and rhythm section hold fast to a Latin motif start to finish. Great energy and, of course, get-up-and-dance motivation. Nice contributions from the flutes, too. (8.875/10)

A3. "Starlight And You" (5:21) rich, chorused Fender Rhodes with airy flute and percussives open this before the bass, drums, and synth strings set up a gentle NORMAN CONNORS-like motif for Donald Smith to sing over. The problem comes in that Donald is singing a sexy love song--something that feels icky/uncomfortable for we the listener after all of his hymns to the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, and the Cosmos. Plus, the song has less jazz pinions and more pop-Soul/R&B foundations than anything I've heard before from Lonnie and the Echoes. (8.66667/10)

B1. "Mongotee" (5:44) back to some jazz-funk with percussion, bass and sax-and-flute providing the grist to the motif. Lonnie's synth strings take over the lead in the third minute, showing his skill at arranging and conducting for an orchestra. (8.75/10)

B2. "A Song Of Love" (4:05) the band tries returning to their more universal themes of praise and gratitude within a song that feels like the band has finally gone fully over to the making of Easy Listening Elevator music. It's good--for that genre--but it just feels so strongly as if it is loosing its jazz-soul to something more commercially-oriented--as if the band is more invested in getting something out for the sales and radio play than the expression of their inner longings and spiritually-elevating mission. (8.75/10)

B3. "Between Here And There" (2:36) Lonnie soloing on his heavily-treated Fender Rhodes. Loveley. (4.5/5)

B4. "Renaissance" (4:53) A high-quality soul/R&B song more akin to the pop-successful music of Earth, Wind & Fire, Rick James, or Steely Dan--complete with female background vocalists. The band has lost their center: allowed it to drop from the heart and third eye to the pelvis. And Donald! I commend your past commitment to the attainment of higher planes while worrying about the giving in to the temptations of the carnal world. (8.75/10)

Total Time: 35:34

Too much of this album is dedicated to showing off Lonnie's new found string synthesizer--and the skill he has at working orchestral strings arrangements into his music.

B/four stars; a collection of very nice, smooth easy listening songs bordering on pop directed. Maybe Lonnie was converted by the success Earth Wind & Fire had with their cover of his own song, "Reasons."