Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes* – Expansions

I just picked this one up today and it didn’t disappoint! Very clean funk jazz fusion with lyrics scattered in between.

All of the reviews below address the quality of the performance, and I agree with all of them; this is definitely a standard-setter for funky, trippy jazz.
But he sound of this pressing is equally impressive. One of the widest soundstages of any album in my collection, and every instrument stands out clearly in it's space. My VG+ copy is even pretty quiet (for a 50-year old artifact). I'm thrilled with this purchase. I guess everything Bob Thiele put his hand to was top-notch quality.

Lonnie Liston Smith, during an interview for Electronic Standards, starts to write the lyrics of the LP theme and prepare his explanations:

”Expand your mind! To understand! We all must leave… In Peace today! Extend your hand! To help the plan! Of Love to all… Mankind on Earth!”

— “That’s the whole message in all the sounds! Man, you can turn your TV on today and watch a war just happening! Right before your eyes! Things are really moving fast! This is … I don’t know what we are going to do… Too much lack of understanding… it’s unbelievable!”
‘Expansions’ tune was the title theme of the 3rd album with the Cosmic Echoes project. “I had never written lyrics before, it was the first opportunity, so I wanted to write lyrics with meaning, and at the same time I wanted to be Jazz, improvised, and contemporary lyrics. All of the musicians were Jazz musicians, to keep that improvised, creative Spirit. I was really happy with the result, because I wanted people to hear all that music and lyrics and at the same time dance to if they wanted. I wanted it all in the music, and it worked!”

Shadows (1975) came out on the same LP. Lonnie tries to explain its unique mood: “I used an echoplex that made the notes repeat themselves, like echoes, or shadows of them in the Space! It’s like when you’re floating in Space, you know… it gave me that feeling! I wanted it to sound at the same time futuristic, organic and human.”

I wish the rest of the LP were more like "Expansions"....

Spacey, spiritual, funky ... one of the classic "fusion" records before that became a dirty word.

Killer space ethnic jazz funk. One of the best of the 70s. And soooooooooooooooooooooo smoooooooth! :-) Really quiet beautiful music.

A landmark pioneering jazz-funk album that is packed with goodies - apart from the obvoius anthemic title track which packs dancefloors across genres and decades. The other tracks are a combination of dirty funk and haunting mellowness that makes this and the LP that followed it, Visions of a New World, the perfect soundtrack for summer days and nights. Lonnie Liston Smith at his finest.