Part 1

Name: Lonnie Liston Smith
Nationality: American
Occupation: Pianist, keyboarder, composer, improviser  
Current release: Lonnie Liston Smith teams up with Ali Shaheed Muhammad & Adrian Younge for Jazz Is Dead 17. For more insights on that album, go to the very end of this interview on page 2, where Lonnie shares details about the recording process.

If you enjoyed this Lonnie Liston Smith interview, and would like to find out moree about his fascinating career and life, visit his official website.

To keep reading, head over to some of our interviews with other participants in the Jazz is Dead series:

[Read our Wendell Harrison interview]
[Read our Garrett Saracho  interview]
[Read our Henry Franklin interview]
[Read our Brian Jackson interview]
[Read our João Donato interview]



From your memory, when did you first start getting interested in improvisation?

My father was in a harmonising gospel group. So it was just music in the house all the time. We had a piano in the house, and I started taking lessons. Gospel, blues, pop songs.

Once, I was over to one of my friend's house when I was in high school. His father was really into jazz, and he played out this record. I said, what is that? And he said, that's Charlie Parker. And I said, Wow, that's good, what's he doing? To which he replied: "He's improvising.“ That's when I decided: That's what I want to do.

I started doing research and listening to the great jazz players, Oscar Peterson, horn players like Miles, and 'Train. I decided I was going to learn as much about improvisation and creating it as possible.

Did you at the very beginning already see a difference between composition and improvisation?

I have two younger brothers, and they both inherited my father's beautiful tenor voice. One thing I had to do was sing the bass parts. We'd always be singing and it's amazing how you can get together and just harmonise.

But with improvisation you have to be able to create in the moment and you have to learn how to discover your sound. Of course, it's far easier to just copy something.

That's what a lot of the young musicians are doing today, copying and transcribing and memorising solos  that someone else has already done. But you know, you have to go inside and find yourself instead. For really creative improvisation, you have to be creating something you actually know, from your inner being your heart and soul.

How would you describe your personal approach to improvisation?

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Like I said, you gotta find your own voice. When you listen to music by the great, you say: Oh, that's John Coltrane. Oh, that's Miles Davis. You can tell by their sound.

For myself, I think I always was impressed with the horn players. And so I guess that's the way I approach the piano. I think  since I can't sing like my father, and my two younger brothers, I'm singing through the piano.

Interestingly, someone like Coltrane was getting a lot of ideas from other instruments as well.

Right? You can hear that from the way he approached the sax.  

How come you chose the piano?

At first, I had no choice – it was the only instrument in the house. But when I got to school, I played in marching bands all the way from middle school, up until high school and college. And everyone wanted to play saxophone and trumpet. So the musical director said, I have too many people playing saxophone and trumpet, I need some tuba players. So I said, shoot, I don't care. I want to be in the marching band. So I played the tuba.

Back then, when I was a little kid, the tuba was a real heavy instrument. They're not that heavy today. Later, I was in the choir, singing the bass part. I just wanted to do music 24/7.

It's remarkable how important these marching bands were, even for later generations of electronic musicians.

When I first started going to Europe, years ago, no one over there was really aware of how important the marching bands are. But yes, they're a big thing. Most of all our great musicians came out of those marching bands.

Do you think that your sense of rhythm and movement is something you took from from those marching bands as well – besides studying other jazz musicians?

I would think so!You know, in the marching bands, we would have jam sessions where we'd come up with some fantastic rhythms and beats. So yes, that's part of it.

Was there room for improvisation in those marching bands? Or were the arrangement very strict?

The arrangements were very strict.

But after I graduated, I went to New Orleans and I discovered how important and exciting the tuba can be. Oh, man, those brass bands - the tuba would be the bass. And those bands would really improvise. It was fantastic.

How would you describe your relationship with the piano?

When you start studying music, and you go to school, I don't care what instrument you you play there, you automatically have to learn the piano. That's how you learn how to compose - almost all great singers and musicians played the piano.

But as said, I was always trying to make the piano sound like the horns. And that's hard. If you notice the horn players or the vocalist, or even the guitarist, they can get the quarter notes. When you listen to 'Train and Pharoah, they'd be playing those notes and on the piano, I was struggling with that.

To get closer to these inbetween notes, I believe I was trying to get those sounds. If you play the piano in a certain way, sometimes you can play the overtones instead.

Were you never drawn to using synthesisers to emulate horn sounds, or using the pitch bend wheel to to actually do what you described?

In the beginning, I was never around electric keyboards until the record I did with Pharoah, Thembi.



We were in California. We get to the studio, and there's a grand piano, so I don't have to set up like everyone else is setting up their instruments. And I saw this instrument in the corner, and I asked the engineer, what is that? He said, that's a Fender Rhodes, it's an electric piano. I said, Oh, okay. So I walked over and started messing with the knobs. And it just happened.

All of a sudden, everyone ran over it said, man, what is that? I said, well, I'm just composing the song right now! So we recorded it straight away, because it was beautiful. And they said, what are you going to call it? And you know, in St. Louis, we were really studying all the religions and philosophies from around the world. I just was kind of studying about astral projection - how you can float and leave your body … it's easier said than done. So that's how the song and title came to be and everyone fell in love with it.

When it came to recording my recent Jazz is Dead thing, that's what they wanted. They wanted the Fender Rhodes. I always prefer the suitcase model. But I heard there's a new model out now, the mk8 or something.

But to get back to your question, with the pitch bend - I never really mastered that. But lately, I've been playing a lot on stage and I fell in love with the Motif. I actually have two, one on the bottom and then one on the top. And I would find different sounds on the top one. It offers you a great selection of different instruments. And that's something I do enjoy.
 
So that story you just told about Thembi - do you think that was the moment you found your sound?

That was part of it. But then, what happened was, I got a call to record with Miles Davis. And we did On the Corner and Big Fun.



I get to the studio, I see three keyboards, and then I see Herbie Hancock, and another keyboard player. So I assume that I'd wait my turn. While I'm standing in the corner, Miles walks over. And he ask us very candidly: What the BLEEP you waiting for? So all want three of us start to play at the same time on the keyboard. I said, Wow, I've never done this before. I can't play what the other ones are playing and vice versa. So we do that and Miles is satisfied.

Then I get the call: Miles wants you to go on tour. So I get to Miles' house and I don't see a Fender Rhodes. Miles said oh, I don't want to hear that sound anymore. Because Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, they all were playing the Rhodes.

So the Japanese gave Miles an electric organ instead. But not the kind that Jimmy Smith would play. It was a keyboard - an electric organ with different sounds on it. Miles wanted me to deal with these sounds now. I asked Miles can I take it home? He said, Oh no, don't you worry, you'll get it when we perform. Because that's how Miles made all the musicians who worked with him very, very strong - every musician who left his group automatically formed their own band. We always said you went to the Miles Davis University.

So I'm on the I'm on the job performing with Miles. I'm learning to play and use the keyboard and you got to create because that's what Miles wanted you to do - really create. But then I noticed that he had all these pedals hooked up to his trumpet. And I'd never seen that before … So I said to myself: When Miles can hook it up to his trumpet - what would happen if I hooked these pedals up to the Fender Rhodes or an electric piano?

And when I did that, that just before we did "Expansions," that's when I came up with what I called the cosmic sound.



Those Miles Davis sessions must have been among the biggest you've ever done, with such a huge number of musicians in one room recording at the same time. Would you say that you're expressing yourself as a as a musician more in solo mode? Or is it precisely through the interaction with other musicians, other great improvisers that you bring out the essence of your music?

That's a good question. That session with Miles, that was really different. You weren't soloing the way you would if you were by yourself. It's amazing what Miles and Theo would do with all these things going on simultaneously, how they would mix them. It came out great. What they did was they got into the studio and decided for each one to have a channel on the board. It felt all written out and everything. But of course it wasn't and that's that the genius.

When Pharoah and I were together, or when I was with other creative musicians, we were usually quartets or quintets, we were listening to each other. So you know, the drummer may do something that sparks something, or the horn player might do something or I might do something that sparks everyone. Kareem Abdul really loved jazz and he compared it to a basketball team - five players like a quintet. And so that's what we're doing.

Whereas, when I did "A Garden of Peace", I was by myself in the studio, and I told Bob [Robert Thiele, Jr.]: I just want to just do something beautiful. And so I played the grand piano, and I only overdubed an electric piano for different colours. It ended up being sampled a lot later, but at the time, we didn't know anything about sampling and I wasn't thinking about making a hit record. I was just thinking about playing something beautiful.



Years later, a younger generation of rappers and other people from around the world fell in love with the piece. So I talked to the young kids and asked them how come y'all fell in love with "A Garden of Peace?" They said, well, it's just so peaceful.

And that's one of the reasons why I play music.

I wonder if, in the 70s, the notion idea of collectivity was far stronger. Maybe there's something cyclical to the idea  which of these two modes - group improvisation versus solo – is more pronounced at a certain moment.

That's a great point because it was almost like when you go to symphonic orchestras. Yeah, that's what Miles did back then. All of us worked together.

It's easier to be an individual and play by yourself. To be able to play within a group, creating and being harmonious and musical - you really got to be talented. That's a great test.

Would Miles give out any directions at all?    

There was no direction. Even when we went on tour, there was a song but it wasn't a song. Because the drums or the bass might start off something, and then you just keep building on that.

A lot of people got upset by Miles. But what they don't realise is that he was still playing the same way he did when he was with 'Train. It was just that everything else around him was different. Tablas, congas, guitar, keyboards, I mean, it was a whole different sound.

I really think people didn't realise that and got upset over nothing. We did the same thing, but it was much more free and much, much more expansive.