Dr. Lonnie Smith - Evolution

The Doctor, in talking about his unique organ style, says, “It’s an extension of my being. It’s a part of my lens. It breathes for me; it speaks for me. I feel every bit of the organ. It’s like electricity—a fire that goes through my body. You can feel it vibrate. There’s nothing like it. It lifts me up, it crawls through the pores of the room.”

That was certainly the case when recording Evolution, which leads off with the catchy groove of “Play It Back,” a tune that Smith recorded in 1970 for the album Live at Club Mozambique, which Blue Note released later in 1995. Robert Glasper catches the groove on the acoustic piano while the double drums enlarge the beat and drive the tune and the organist zips into funky B-3 licks. “People keep asking me to play this song,” he says. “I had never played with Robert before, but it was wonderful. It really fit. We melded together.”

The slower, looser grooved “Afrodesia” comes from the 1975 album of the same name. On that session, a young tenor saxophonist named Joe Lovano made his auspicious recording debut. “Joe Lovano is an extraordinary player,” Smith says. “He still plays with that same feeling of joy as when he was young. He was already bad as a youngster and knew where he was heading. He did a great job playing a different horn [G Mezzo soprano saxophone], and he brings different colors into the song.”

The third tune is the ballad “For Heaven’s Sake,” which features Lovano on tenor. It opens with Kreisberg’s lyrical guitar then blooms with the three horns (Lovano, Ellis and Brown) harmonizing in an emotive vein. “I wrote that beautiful song a long, long, long time ago,” says Smith. “It’s about people taking me into oblivion. I remember when I was living in Hawaii, and I played this on a tape but never recorded it.”

Other originals showing up for the first time on a recording is the funky blues “Talk About This,” featuring ecstatic trumpeting from Brown and a band chant, and the haunting end song “African Suite” with Smith on Korg keyboard. Of the former Smith says that the tune is about “doing all the talking without saying something,” while the long-form finale is highlighted by the double drum bash and Ellis’s wafting flute melody.

The Doctor also delivers his reinventions of two classic standards, both in a guitar-drum trio setting. Thelonious Monk’s treasure “Straight No Chaser” gets taken for an uptempo ride. “It has a different flavor so we wouldn’t bore people,” he says. “It has to become yours at that moment. It’s like moving into a house that someone’s been living in, so you bring in your own furniture to make it yours. With Monk, you just hope you don’t destroy the beauty of what he was saying. We feel we achieved that.”

As for “My Favorite Things,” a favorite of Smith’s live set, the Doctor cooks up an orchestral swell on the Korg that opens into a bright guitar joyride. “I’m playing life itself,” he says. “It’s funny. Music is to be played. That means if a song comes up to you, the first thing you do is shake hands and then you feel the vibration of silence. You never know what’s going to happen, but it’s got to be soulful, which no one can teach you.”