Lonnie Liston Smith: Jazz Is Dead 17

Having kicked off 2023 with one of the strongest albums in its catalogue—Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison's Jazz Is Dead 16—Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge's label continues on a roll. Jazz Is Dead 17 finds the two producers in their funked-up comfort zone and relishing it.

Strange but true, Jazz Is Dead 17 is Lonnie Liston Smith's first newly recorded album release since 1998. And while it does not rise to the heights of classics such as Cosmic Funk (Flying Dutchman, 1974) and Expansions (Flying Dutchman, 1975), or albums with Pharoah Sanders such as Karma (Impulse!, 1969) and Izipho Zam (Strata-East, 1973), fans of those albums should find much to enjoy.

Continuity is provided not only by Smith's trippy/funky acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes, both of which are in fine fettle and stacked up with Younge's clavinet, Mellotron and Hammond B3, but also by vocalist Loren Oden's presence on four of the nine tracks. Oden does not employ the signature yodels of Leon Thomas, Sanders' vocalist when Smith was in the band, but he conjures up an otherwise similar vibe, which has echoes, too, of Smith's singer brother, Donald Smith. (Check the YouTube below, where Smith and Oden perform "Expansions" live in 2020).

If there is a criticism to be made, it is that the tracks are too short. The album's playing time is 34 minutes (Jazz Is Dead albums usually clock in at around half an hour), so the nine tracks have an average length of fewer than four minutes. On his own classic discs, it is true that Smith rarely went in for extended tracks; but that was a frustration then just as it is now. At least two of the instrumental jams, "Dawn" and "Gratitude," are crying out for long-form exploration. The consolation is that as one track ends, its river-deep groove is invariably followed by another.

Any new Lonnie Liston Smith album after 25 years would be an event. This one hits the spot.

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