milven
05-27-2012, 03:46 PM
One would think that we know everything there is to know about the Supremes, but while reading an article about Lonnie Smith, I discovered that there was once a male group called The Supremes that included Lonnie Smith and Grover Washington Jr.
4955
According to the listed info, label is from Utica,N.Y. but the group is from Buffalo,N.Y. They featured:
Grover Washington Jr.-Lonnie Smith-Barbara Sinclair aka St. Clair. The guys ventured into jazz afterwards and Barbara is an R&B legend in Buffalo and still performing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8P_0pJYtJc
If there is going to be a male trio singing Snap, Crackle & Pop, I prefer this group :D:D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6TIsxTdrCU&feature=BFa&list=PLC132D98439ADF160
Jazz doctor hangs out his shingle
Michael Dwyer
May 28, 2012
The turban groove of Dr Lonnie Smith: 'I do operations on people, make 'em feel good. I think it's the young people that keeps me alive.'
MAGIC happened the first time Lonnie Smith laid his fingers on a keyboard. He was about nine or 10 when he wandered into the front room of his aunt's house in Louisville, Kentucky, and picked out the smash hit of 1953, Crying in the Chapel.
''I still remember the key and everything, just like that was yesterday,'' he says with wonder. ''My mother was in the next room and she said, 'Who's that playing the piano?' They came in and it was me.''
The man with the dubious title [[''I do operations on people, make 'em feel good'') and the mystical turban [[''that is a subject I would say is off-limits'') tells similarly strange tales about elementary school encounters with the trumpet, coronet and trombone.
Advertisement: Story continues below Before Diana Ross hit the scene, he also led a vocal group in the '50s by the name of the Supremes. But those spooky signposts to destiny were nothing compared with the day he met the instrument that would make his name, the Hammond B3 organ.
''Oh, it was love between the two of us,'' he says, his voice thick with emotion. ''It was love. It was just like an out-of-body experience that was inside. It was heaven, right there, when I touched it.''
The 190-kilogram miracle of modern engineering was worth about $3400 back then, he says, but a Mr Art Kubera, the owner of the music store in his home town of Lackawanna in New York state, simply said, ''It's yours.''
''I messed around with the trumpet and all those different things but what happened with the organ was, it found me,'' Smith testifies.
''I express myself beautifully through the organ. It speaks what I'm trying to say better than I ever could.''
As a musician, Lonnie Smith has always been more cosmic than conventional. His refusal to read or write music has been no detriment to a 50-year career that kicked off in the New York jazz underground of the mid '60s, where he took over from fellow Hammond legend ''Brother'' Jack McDuff behind hot-shot guitarist George Benson.
''What I do is I feel it,'' the doctor croons. ''Some of the tunes are so difficult to look at [on the page] and if you went to school, first of all they tell you, 'Write that out'. Me, I just had to go by pure ear. If you can't write it, you just have to remember it.''
Nor has any notion of traditional jazz repertoire had any bearing on his discography, from a string of late '60s/early '70s soul-jazz LPs on the Blue Note label to more recent albums channelling the work of Jimi Hendrix and Beck.
''I love all the music, whether it comes to country or funk or rock,'' he says. ''If it feels good to me, I love it.
''Sometimes musicians put other genres of music down, just because they play classical and someone else plays bluegrass or whatever. Well, a lot of them say that because they can't play the other stuff. They might have the ability, but they can't really play like that.''
When the smooth Hammond groove fell out of fashion during the synthesiser scare of the 1980s, Smith cheerfully weathered a 15-year studio drought in Hawaii, ''hanging with George Benson and Marvin Gaye''.
''I was doing great. And the clubs stayed packed,'' he says. ''Maybe that's because even today, the name has stayed out there. I'm one of the few purists left out of that era. I think it's the young people that keeps me alive.''
His own youthful mindset probably helps.
Smith's imminent album, The Healer Live, is the first release from his new company, Pilgrimage Productions.
Scheduled to mark his 70th birthday in July, it was financed by fan subscription via Kickstarter, a project funding website more commonly used by fledgling indie acts.
''Everything is new to me,'' the doctor says.
''I think I'm even going to go as far as T-shirts and things. Do like some of the pop stars do, you know? They're cookin' and gone. Rap stars and all those? They're smarter than we were. So I'm ready to get into that.''
Dr Lonnie Smith Trio plays at Bennetts Lane on June 7 and 8 at 8pm and 11pm. melbournejazz.com
4956
4955
According to the listed info, label is from Utica,N.Y. but the group is from Buffalo,N.Y. They featured:
Grover Washington Jr.-Lonnie Smith-Barbara Sinclair aka St. Clair. The guys ventured into jazz afterwards and Barbara is an R&B legend in Buffalo and still performing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8P_0pJYtJc
If there is going to be a male trio singing Snap, Crackle & Pop, I prefer this group :D:D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6TIsxTdrCU&feature=BFa&list=PLC132D98439ADF160
Jazz doctor hangs out his shingle
Michael Dwyer
May 28, 2012
The turban groove of Dr Lonnie Smith: 'I do operations on people, make 'em feel good. I think it's the young people that keeps me alive.'
MAGIC happened the first time Lonnie Smith laid his fingers on a keyboard. He was about nine or 10 when he wandered into the front room of his aunt's house in Louisville, Kentucky, and picked out the smash hit of 1953, Crying in the Chapel.
''I still remember the key and everything, just like that was yesterday,'' he says with wonder. ''My mother was in the next room and she said, 'Who's that playing the piano?' They came in and it was me.''
The man with the dubious title [[''I do operations on people, make 'em feel good'') and the mystical turban [[''that is a subject I would say is off-limits'') tells similarly strange tales about elementary school encounters with the trumpet, coronet and trombone.
Advertisement: Story continues below Before Diana Ross hit the scene, he also led a vocal group in the '50s by the name of the Supremes. But those spooky signposts to destiny were nothing compared with the day he met the instrument that would make his name, the Hammond B3 organ.
''Oh, it was love between the two of us,'' he says, his voice thick with emotion. ''It was love. It was just like an out-of-body experience that was inside. It was heaven, right there, when I touched it.''
The 190-kilogram miracle of modern engineering was worth about $3400 back then, he says, but a Mr Art Kubera, the owner of the music store in his home town of Lackawanna in New York state, simply said, ''It's yours.''
''I messed around with the trumpet and all those different things but what happened with the organ was, it found me,'' Smith testifies.
''I express myself beautifully through the organ. It speaks what I'm trying to say better than I ever could.''
As a musician, Lonnie Smith has always been more cosmic than conventional. His refusal to read or write music has been no detriment to a 50-year career that kicked off in the New York jazz underground of the mid '60s, where he took over from fellow Hammond legend ''Brother'' Jack McDuff behind hot-shot guitarist George Benson.
''What I do is I feel it,'' the doctor croons. ''Some of the tunes are so difficult to look at [on the page] and if you went to school, first of all they tell you, 'Write that out'. Me, I just had to go by pure ear. If you can't write it, you just have to remember it.''
Nor has any notion of traditional jazz repertoire had any bearing on his discography, from a string of late '60s/early '70s soul-jazz LPs on the Blue Note label to more recent albums channelling the work of Jimi Hendrix and Beck.
''I love all the music, whether it comes to country or funk or rock,'' he says. ''If it feels good to me, I love it.
''Sometimes musicians put other genres of music down, just because they play classical and someone else plays bluegrass or whatever. Well, a lot of them say that because they can't play the other stuff. They might have the ability, but they can't really play like that.''
When the smooth Hammond groove fell out of fashion during the synthesiser scare of the 1980s, Smith cheerfully weathered a 15-year studio drought in Hawaii, ''hanging with George Benson and Marvin Gaye''.
''I was doing great. And the clubs stayed packed,'' he says. ''Maybe that's because even today, the name has stayed out there. I'm one of the few purists left out of that era. I think it's the young people that keeps me alive.''
His own youthful mindset probably helps.
Smith's imminent album, The Healer Live, is the first release from his new company, Pilgrimage Productions.
Scheduled to mark his 70th birthday in July, it was financed by fan subscription via Kickstarter, a project funding website more commonly used by fledgling indie acts.
''Everything is new to me,'' the doctor says.
''I think I'm even going to go as far as T-shirts and things. Do like some of the pop stars do, you know? They're cookin' and gone. Rap stars and all those? They're smarter than we were. So I'm ready to get into that.''
Dr Lonnie Smith Trio plays at Bennetts Lane on June 7 and 8 at 8pm and 11pm. melbournejazz.com
4956