Lonnie Liston Smith And The Cosmic Echoes – Expansions

Lonnie Liston Smith's 1975 jazz-funk masterpiece is released on 180g black vinyl in a nice thick card gatefold sleeve. Former Miles Davis and Pharoah Sanders keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith saw all his musical ideas coming together for this, his third album. The title track is one of the best-known jazz funk classics; it's influence on several generations of clubbers cannot be underestimated. It is a glorious amalgamation of jazz players and the tenor voice of Lonnie's brother Donald. However, the track's success has resulted in the album becoming rather overlooked and it's other six pieces underappreciated. 'Desert Nights' and 'Voodoo Woman' give vent to Lonnie's improvisational skills over a modal base. 'Summer Days' and 'My Love' are based around Latin rhythms, with the latter proving another great vehicle for Donald Smith's voice. Donald is also the singer on an inspired take on Horace Silver's 'Peace'.

Reviews

“Expansions wasn’t an album conceived to preach to the already converted, but a spiritual call, a proselytization that broadcast far beyond the jazz club, to the discotheques and dancefloors of secular ecstasy that were ripe for the spiritual themes of rebirth and renaissance it carried. That was its crime, and that was its triumph.” — The Quietus

“Amiable, melodic and groovadelic, if you only have one jazz-funk album in your library, make it *Expansions*.” — All About Jazz

“Really great records never lose their freshness and this is one of those. Please get your hands on this sublime recording, something is missing in your collection.” — Funk My Soul

The music on *Expansions* is timeless soul-jazz, perfect in every era. Of all the fusion records of this type released in the mid-’70s, *Expansions* provided smoother jazzers and electronica’s sampling wizards with more material that Smith could ever have anticipated.” — AllMusic

“Majestically groovy and thoroughly in tune with its time, *Expansions* built on the solid foundations of LLS' previous LPs *Astral Travelling* and *Cosmic Funk*.” — Jazzwise