BST 84290

Lonnie Smith - Think!

Released - 1968

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, July 23, 1968
Lee Morgan, trumpet; David Newman, tenor sax, flute; Lonnie Smith, organ; Herman Henry, Melvin Sparks, guitar; Marion Booker Jr., drums; Norberto Apellaniz, Willie Bivens, congas #1,2; Pucho, timbales #1,2.

3064 tk.12 The Call Of The Wind
3065 tk.24 Slouchin'
3066 tk.31 Son Of Ice Bag
3067 tk.51 Three Blind Mice
3068 tk.57 Think

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images / 
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Son of Ice Bag	Hugh Masekela	July 13 1968
The Call of the Wild	Lonnie Smith	July 13 1968
Side Two
Think	Aretha Franklin, Ted White	July 13 1968
Three Blind Mice	Traditional	July 13 1968
Slouchin'	Lonnie Smith	July 13 1968

Liner Notes

NO MATTER who you are friend, it is not so easy to define the style of an era as complex as music. No definition in fact can take in all its currents and cross currents, or even come close to encompassing its extraordinarily different personalities. No single person of time, no single piece of art or literature is fully typical of music as we precisely know it in the 20th century. When one chooses music as a career, one must be prepared to THINK and think well, for if you do not, you are destined to end up a foolish soul with notes, tracks and writings around your neck making you look like a pedlar going to a fair.

The manner in which Lonnie Smith has rallied his spiritual and material forces for this recording leads me to believe the shadows of gradual obscurity will not have the chance to Cover one so thoroughly committed to his art. It is apparent that because Lonnie does think, he is fundamentally, intellectually and musically equipped to be himself, as he so well demonstrates throughout the five selections heard in this album, THINK.

Jazz is art and a very special art. It is an art that involves so very much. Lonnie Smith seems to be aware of it all. This album does attest to that, in that it swings throughout. The basic essentials of rhythm, melody and tonal colors are always present.

Son Of Ice Bag launches side one of this beautiful Blue Note adventure. The tune itself was written by Hugh Masekela. It has a joyous beginning in good taste and restraint. Then, the cue is given and guitarist Melvln Sparks takes over with a solo that flashes excitement as it glows and sparkles with vitality. Melvin's guitar packs a free and easy flow of improvised melody. David Newman solos with the customary swinging know-how with which he has been identified so long, but he does it with a great edge on today's sound, yet he doesn't overpower you with it to a point where he has your nerves rattling. Then, as if by E.S.P, Lee Morgan enters with the beautiful "bee" and "bird" sounds of his trumpet. He surges ahead with the same Morganese we've enjoyed through the years, and he does it with controlled vigor and freshness. After a brief unified statement by the group, Lonnie slides in unobtrusively with some organ pumping that will have you up and doing your own thing by this time. From the very beginning, you can detect that Lonnie is full of imagination and zest. He digs In and cooks in such a way as to come out sounding strictly Lonnie Smith. All in all, the group has a successful flight on this one.

The Call Of The Wild, a Lonnie Smith original, is a well planned expedition. It begins by wrapping itself around you with beautiful warmth and quietness. Then wow!! With the gates open and the barriers down, Lonnie and his men leap out. A great Latin sound has been created here. Lonnie shows that he has the knowledge and abundant know-how to compose pieces against accepted beliefs. He reconciles the two themes with marvelous technique sugesting the trained musician's skill and ability in timing and coordination. Sparks, Morgan and Newman once more have the opportunity to acquit themselves admirably with excellent solo spots. Lonnie's great organ propulsion is behind the whole action. You feel the injection of imaginative excitement and fervor rising from his keyboard as it whirls around great instrumental interplay. The percussion heat generated by Marion Booker, Jr. and Pucho in the lead is a sheer knockout. The pulsation of The Call Of The Wild will liberate the most controlled id.

Think, the well chosen title tune, is the Aretha Franklin and Ted Wright soul classic. On this one, Lonnie and his music mates wear their "'considering caps" with great style. This one isn't just played. It's interpreted. The good vibrations take little time to impress you. Forget about all that intellectualizing for a while and help yourself to a heavy sampling of Lonnie Smith as he sermonizes his way across town on this soul beat. One of the interesting things about Think is the fact that Lonnie obviously does not have time for exaggeration of fact. Rather, he tells it like it really is, and after all when you are running for public acceptance there's nothing else the people want to hear. THINK is an excellent showcase for Lonnie. If nothing else, his performance does much to broaden his already wide appeal.

Three Blind Mice are blind no longer. Figuratively spea19ng, Lonnie has helped these three overcome their legendary plight by breathing new hope into their souls. With the aid of his brothers in music Lonnie has enabled these mice to stop chasing the wrong object and pick on something more to their fancy instead.

Slouchin', one of the best tunes in the album, is another Lonnie Smith original. This piece means just what it implies. There's nothing else to do for a while, so let's take a holiday and do some slouchin'. Here again, the Lonnie Smith organ touch is not only a happy and moving one, but is immediately identifiable. The leader and his soul brothers display all their magnificent growth. Sparks gets the first solo nod. His guitar work is tasty. Morgan launches a solo that won't let go. Newman takes it next and by the time he turns the piece over to the boss, everybody within earshot is Slouchin'. Lonnie keeps it going in such a way with his free and easy organ style, that before you realize it, your shoes are off and the Slouchin' is over. Booker and Pucho lead the percussion section in a nice galloping fashion and cheer their leader all the way home.

Jazz continues to stay alive, interesting, fresh sounding to our senses, a vital art of today (with a great past and hopefully an exciting future), thanks to artists like Lonnie Smith, who THINK.

-RHETT EVERS
Jazz in Stereo
WTFM, N.Y., N.Y.

David Newman performs by courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.
Henry (Pucho) Brown performs by courtesy of Prestige Records.

Album design by FORLENZA VENOSA ASSOCIATES
Photos by FRANCIS WOLFF
Recording by DAVE SANDERS (A & R Recordings, Inc.)
Produced by FRANCIS WOLFF

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT THINK!

The leader of Think! is one of two keyboard-playing Lonnie Smiths emerged in the 1960s and have caused more than a bit of discographic confusion. The other, slightly older Lonnie Smith (Lonnie "piano" Smith, if you will), recorded under that name with Roland Kirk and a few others. By the time he joined Pharoah Sanders in 1969, he using his middle name as well and was henceforth known as Lonnie Liston Smith.

The present Lonnie Smith (or Dr. Lonnie Smith, as he has taken to calling himself in recent years) was born in 1942 in Buffalo and began his musical career while still a teenager in a doo-wop group that also included Grover Washington, Jr. Fascination with Jimmy Smith's 1960 Blue Note album Midnight Special led Smith to the organ, an instrument he mastered without formal instruction. While sitting in with Jack McDuff's band in 1964, he met and immediately bonded with McDuff's guitarist George Benson. The encounter led to the formation of Benson's own quartet in 1966 (a band that would soon also feature drummer Marion Booker, Jr.) and to Smith's recording debut with Benson on Columbia.

Benson's band made enough of a splash to earn Smith his own Columbia album, Finger Lickin' Good; but what really cemented the reputations of the guitarist and organist was their contribution to Lou Donaldson's 1967 Blue Note hit Alligator Bogaloo. Smith participated in two more sessions with Donaldson over the next year, and then landed his own contract with the label, with Think!, the first of albums Smith recorded as a leader over the next two years.

The personnel involved here, and the variety of material featured, make this far superior to the organ-combo norm of the late-'60s. In addition to the soulful, still-underrated Melvin Sparks and the always reliable David "'Fathead" Newman, the band includes trumpeter Lee Morgan, who had participated in some of the greatest organ jams sessions in history with Jimmy Smith a decade earlier. While taking his music into more contemporary post-bop areas at the end of his career, Morgan also began making occasional appearances with organists again. He returned for Lonnie Smith's next album Turning Point, and did turns with Blue Note artists Larry Young (Mother Ship) and Rueben Wilson (Love Bug), all in 1969. Two days before this murder in 1972, Morgan made his last studio appearance with another organist, Charles Earland, on Prestige. As was the case on those other dates, Morgan never had to simplify his approach to accommodate the format (hear his turnarounds on Slouchin'), and the soulful content of his contributions were a given, he also blends well with Newman, who was Morgan's front-line partner on the trumpeters 1967 Sonic Boom.

On "The Call of the Wild" and "Slouchin'," a three-piece Afro-Latin percussion section under the leadership of Henry "Pucho" Brown is added. They lend a particularly orgiastic rhythm vibe to the former track. Norberto Apellaniz, credited as a second conga player here, was regularly heard on bongos in Pucho's popular combo of the time, the Latin Soul Brothers.

The material is fairly straightforward, with a minimum of harmonic movement, yet there is variety in the arrangements and consistent quality in the solo contributions. Among the three covers is "Three Blind Mice" that borrows directly, albeit at a slower tempo, from the arrangement of the nursery rhyme that Curtis Fuller crafted for Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in 1962.

Smith's subsequent history is indicative of the struggles that all organists encountered. The rise of electric pianos and other keyboards by 1970 signaled what appeared to be the death knell of the Hammond B-3. Public interest dropped so precipitously that Smith's final Blue Note date, the presence of Benson notwithstanding, remained unissued for a quartet century. Odd Smith albums appeared on a variety of labels through the next two decades, until a few trio albums for the Japanese Venus imprint in the early '90s reminded the world that the now-turbaned Dr. Lonnie Smith remained at the peak of his powers. As these notes are written, Smith has just released a new collection under his own name on Palmetto, He continues to work regularly with Lou Donaldson and has become the organist of choice for musicians of diverse styles and generations.

— Bob Blumenthal, 2005