Venue: Snug Harbor (New Orleans)
Date: November 29, 2013

Review and photo by DJ Ruby (DooBeeDoo’s New Orleans contributor)

Sublime may be the only appropriate way to describe B3 organ master Dr. Lonnie Smith’s November 29th performance for the small but packed room at Snug Harbor on bustling Frenchmen Street. With each key change the audience followed him eagerly through levels of exaltation in the music that seemed to ooze from his fingers.

While Dr. Smith was channeling the sublime, a supporting cast of local musicians added considerable talent to his set. Alto saxophonist Wess Anderson was on-point with his signature wide-swinging blues style gleaned from years of study with the legendary New Orleans composer and clarinetist Alvin Batiste. Batiste who taught for many years at Southern University was Anderson’s mentor during his studies there. Impressive young drummer Joe Dyson was energetic and tight, while Detroit Brooks’ laid back precision on guitar honed over decades of session work added solid groundwork for the Doctor to improvise over. And as Smith’s fingers whirred away on the keys, the big Leslie speaker box containing the Hammond’s spinning tone wheel loomed large in the background like a 5th member of the band on Snug’s little stage.

The Doctor and company treated us to a varied set employing the full range of his organ’s tonal capabilities, from rollicking and jovial to chill-meltingly sensual. The set-list was peppered with a couple of standards including Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” and a few tunes from Smith’s more recent albums including the dirge “And The World Weeps” from his 2009 release Rise Up. The group was in good form with each member taking a solo on at least every other tune, apart from Dyson who only stepped out front one time for an extended solo that blew the room away. Generally, though, the supporting players kept their meditations relatively short allowing plenty of space for Dr. Smith to stretch his fingers, as he ran through characteristically dramatic crescendos and nuanced melodic interpolations.

After a particularly exciting workout that began with Smith turning the organ into a veritable trumpet concerto, the Doctor paused the music. As he laughed to himself he addressed the audience playfully: “Now, that is what I call super-imposing”. Despite the fact that Smith describes himself as a shy man, his emotions are displayed in full range on stage. Nothing about his furrowed brow or periodic scats and shouts into the microphone as he weaves a melody or lays out a nasty bass line feels artificial. In fact, its likely that it would feel disingenuous if his facial contortions and dramatic gesticulations didn’t mirror the various genre bending exaltations coming from the organ. Like he once said in an interview with Ted Panken for Downbeat: “Do you think I make faces to be making faces? No!” When it comes to the music, Smith really is a specialist in all styles melding strains of the blues with soulful jazz sensibilities documented in a discography that stretches back to his days with Blue Note in the mid-1960’s. His easygoing funk chops stand out on some of his early records like Drives (1970) and Mama Wailer (1971) but also make worthwhile appearances on his more recent releases like 2004’s Too Damn Hot. Beyond the funk, Dr. Smith’s fingers emit jazz licks that tickle the dark cobwebbed corners of the brain. Records like 2009’s Spiral are particularly good examples of his more exploratory side that flirt with post-bop. Worth mention is also his solid bluesy work as a longtime sideman for Lou Donaldson, that resulted in more than one hit like 1968’s “Alligator Boogaloo” and stretched into the ‘90s. His career of organ work seems to give meaning to the somewhat abstract term “soul jazz”.

Appropriately, his decades of contributions to the music world did not go unrecognized on the night at Snug Harbor. The accolades began with local jazz journalist and JJA representative Jennifer Odell and New Orleans’ soul tastemaker DJ Soul Sister presenting Dr. Smith with the 2013 Jazz Journalist Association’s (JJA) award for Keyboards Player of the Year (which he has won on 5 separate occasions). The remainder of the night was filled with unabashed vocal praise from an audience energized by the Doc’s passion for the groove.

That passion is the same that in 1964, after only one year of playing keyboards, so impressed Grant Green’s manager that he walked up to Smith after hearing him play in a Harlem nightclub and asked if he wanted to record in Rudy Van Gelder’s studio the very next day. A few years later he would win Downbeat magazine’s “Top Organist” of the year award and Those who saw him at Snug will attest that his long and prolific career with such auspicious beginnings continues to bear very tasty fruit.

A Taste of Dr. Lonnie Smith emitting jazz licks that tickle the dark cobwebbed corners of the brain?!