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Expansions (Lonnie Liston Smith album)

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Expansions
Studio album by
Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes
Released1975
RecordedNovember 25 & 26, 1974
StudioNew York City
GenreJazz-funk[1]
Length39:12
LabelRCA/Flying Dutchman
BDL1-0934
ProducerBob Thiele, Lonnie Liston Smith
Lonnie Liston Smith chronology
Cosmic Funk
(1974)
Expansions
(1975)
Visions of a New World
(1975)

Expansions is an album by keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith, featuring performances recorded in 1974 and released by the Flying Dutchman label the following year.[2]

Reception

[edit]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]

In his review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek stated, "It is fully a jazz album, and a completely funky soul-jazz disc as well ... Smith plays both piano and electric keyboards and keeps his compositions on the jazzy side -- breezy, open, and full of groove playing that occasionally falls over to the funk side of the fence ... Summery and loose in feel, airy and free with its in-the-cut beats and stellar piano fills, Expansions prefigures a number of the "smooth jazz" greats here, without the studio slickness and turgid lack of imagination. ... 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".[3]

Track listing

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All compositions by Lonnie Liston Smith except where noted

  1. "Expansions" − 6:04
  2. "Desert Nights" − 6:42
  3. "Summer Days" − 5:50
  4. "Voodoo Woman" (Smith, Michael Carvin) − 4:20
  5. "Peace" (Horace Silver, Doug Carn) − 4:15
  6. "Shadows" − 6:20
  7. "My Love" − 5:43

Personnel

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  • Lonnie Liston Smith − piano, electric piano, electronic keyboard textures
  • Donald Smith − flute, vocals, vocal textures
  • Dave Hubbard − soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, alto flute (tracks 2-4, 6 & 7)
  • Cecil McBee − bass
  • Art Gore − drums
  • Michael Carvin − percussion, clavinet, drums (tracks 1, 2 & 4, 6 & 7)
  • Leopoldo Fleming − bongos, percussion (tracks 1-4, 6 & 7)
  • Lawrence Killian − congas, percussion (tracks 1-4, 6 & 7)

References

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  1. ^ Gorton, TJ (July 30, 2018). "BeatCaffeine's 100 Best Jazz-Funk Songs". BeatCaffeine. Archived from the original on August 25, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2021.
  2. ^ Flying Dutchman Label Discography accessed November 22, 2019
  3. ^ a b Jurek, Thom. Expansions – Review at AllMusic. Retrieved November 22, 2019.