LONNIE LISTON SMITH — Loveland (review)

LONNIE LISTON SMITH — Loveland album cover

Album · 1978 · Fusion

4/5 · 2024-12-07
FunkFreak75

Say goodbye to the Cosmic Echoes, hello Columbia Records. With this album, Lonnie eschews his wonderful team of collaborators of the past six years. The "cosmic" "expanding consciousness" pretense of his Cosmic Echoes years seems also on the outs, here choosing to try to reach to connect and entertain the pop-oriented masses, using more generic, humanized love themes in place of the celestial ones. This is also the album on which Lonnie introduces to the world the 18-year old bass phenom he discovered as a 16-year old, Marcus Miller! Marcus appears on songs 1, 3 & 4 of Side One. His talents are already prodigious.

Lineup / Musicians: - Lonnie Liston Smith / Keyboards - George Johnson / Drums - Lawrence Killian / Congas, Percussion - Ronald D. Miller / Electric guitars, acoustic guitar (B3) - Donald Smith / Flutes (A1, A3, A4, B2), Vocals (A2, B1, B3) - David Hubbard / Flutes (A1, A2, B2), Soprano Saxophone (A3, A4, B3, B4) With: - Marcus Miller / Bass (1, 3, 4) - Al Anderson / Bass (B2, B3, B4)

A1. "Sunburst" (4:08) great start! Funky Smooth Jazz in the territory of masters like BOB JAMES and the LAWS family. Flute, funky bass, great near-Disco drums and percussion, with Lonnie's electric piano virtuosity on full display. I love that he is still so enamored of the continually-evolving technologies of electric keyboards. This is really a fun, zippy song! (9.125/10)

A2. "Journey into Love" (5:19) another slower BOB JAMES-like song over which brother Donald sings among the spacey keys, horn accents, and steady but deep and rich "Papa Was a Rolling Stone"-like bass. (8.875/10)

A3. "Floating Through Space" (4:35) so rich and lovely! One can just get lost floating in the psychedelic ether while supported by Marcus' steady, engaging bass line. (9.5/10)

A4. "Bright Moments" (6:43) built on engaging yet simple (watered down) Latin rhythms with Lonnie's piano pounding/accenting brilliantly right along with the rhythm section as David Hubbard's saxophone carries the main melody. I could listen to piano solos like this all day long! (9.25/10)

B1. "We Can Dream" (5:00) another funky rhythm-supported R&B song with Lonnie's brother Donald singing in his gorgeous Leon Thomas/Philip Bailey-like voice. The lyrics and melody used to deliver them aren't quite up to the quality of the music with its strings and horn arrangements. Even Lonnie's Fender solo is lacking a little zip and zest despite the ample support. (8.75/10)

B2. "Springtime Magic" (4:18) built around a two-chord strummed rhythm guitar sequence, the bass and flute almost immediately add something interesting to the mix, but the drums are a bit robotic and the rhythm guitar quickly fades into the realm of forgottenhood. Lonnie and the ethereal flutes (there are two of them) try to keep us entertained but even they fall short. (8.75/10)

B3. "Loveland" (3:30) now here's a song that seems to reach back into the old palette of magic that Lonnie and Donald had with the Cosmic Echoes. I love it when Donald sounds like Leon Thomas. So commanding! (8.875/10)

B4. "Explorations" (6:27) an arrangement of a horn bank opens this one, sounding almost like a Christmas Carole type of theme, but then super-fast funk bass kicks in with Lonnie's swirling electric piano and some solid CHIC-like rhythm guitar supporting David Hubbard's deep and rich soprano sax sound soloing up front. In a big surprise, an electric guitar solo takes over the third minute--Ronald D. Miller's tone taking on an ERNIE ISLEY or LARRY CORYELL like sound and style. Impressive! And he gets to keep the spotlight well into the fifth minute! Truly Herculean (in the Ernie Isley way). The song's main foundation is not very different from that of Eumir Deodato's "Superstrut" with some absolutely stellar funk bass and rhythm guitar play. And Lonnie doesn't even take a second of solo for himself: just funking things up with his heavily-processed electronic keyboards. In the end I realize how this song is built over the same chord and rhythm pacing as the album's opening song, "Sunburst." (9.125/10)

The music through out this album is smooth, very lush and engaging and very well crafted--and still jazzy in its foundations. These are really great songs, some of them probably ideal for the Discotheque or Adult Contemporary "Pillow Talk" night time radio play. It's like a step up from the Bob James and (Jazz) Crusaders productions of the time, similar to the music of the Laws brothers (Hubert and Ronnie), but even more mature and "polished."

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of very high quality Smooth Jazz.