DR LONNIE SMITH — Rise Up! (review)

DR LONNIE SMITH — Rise Up! album cover Album · 2008 · Soul Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
After a lengthy almost complete hiatus from the late 70’s until the early 00’s, with only a sporadic outburst of activity in the mid-90’s (mostly tributes to Hendrix and Coltrane), Dr LS came back in the last decade with a slew of release, starting with the amusingly-titles The Turbanator in 2000, and has since released another five albums, including the present Rise Up and its predecessor Jungle Soul, which appear to be his higher-profile albums of “his second career”. When I say second career, I might as well une the word “reviva” more aptly, because if you go on by these two releases, there is absolutely nothing new under the sun, and you could almost swear (except for a few details) that these would be 60’s and 70’s batches of his usual Hammond-drenched soul-jazz’s lost recordings. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not really a criticism, because sonically, this is an extremely pleasant slab of musical bytes that has the same kind of enthusiasm than those of La Grande Epoque, but one can wonder about the utility of such releases that are anything but groundbreaking.

Anyway, armed with his accompanying sax-guitar-drum quartet and and a few guests, Dr. LS’ Rise Up is a very pleasant collection mix of covers - including the Beatles’ Come Together or Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams, for ex - and originals that he might have penned in his glorious first career. What a joy to hear his soulful Hammond splattered all over the album, even if it sounds a bit dated and quite retro. There are a few vocals sprinkled here and there, some by the doctor himself, others by gust Joe Lawry, but Rise Up is a predominantly instrumental affair where Harrison’s sax and to a lesser extent Bernstein’s guitar are given their share f the spotlight to allow the album not becoming a bit too gently monotonous, but this does happen somewhat, because the album tops the hour in length, so the bombardment effect is somewhat a factor. But there is not much point to owning this album if you already own a few from the 60-70's. IMHO, anyway.
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