Lonnie Liston Smith @ The HiFi Club, Thursday 14th March 2002

When we at Leeds365 heard that Jazz legend Lonnie Liston Smith was playing The HiFi Club, we despatched our good friend Dr Bod down to check it out.

"Right from the start it was obvious that this was not going to be a regular Thursday night at the HiFi Club. Not only was the entry price at the door substantially more than normal, the club was populated by a far greater diversity of people than is usually seen in this preserve of predominantly white, recent-graduate types. Lonnie Liston Smith climbed onto stage with his drummer, bassist and guitarist, and received a loud, warm welcome. He began with a piece in which his own keyboard playing took second place to the frantic and accomplished guitar line. This was less an exercise in demonstrating technical supremacy and ego-flexing, more a measured piece of work by four musically-intimate performers.

For the second song, Lonnie was joined by a female singer, who brought to this, and several later songs, powerful yet restrained vocals. From that point on the set flowed laconically from one smooth, gentle jazz track to the next for an hour and a half, punctuated only occasionally by slightly more up-tempo numbers. Just as it all seemed to be winding down, Lonnie left stage with his guitarist and singer, right in the middle of the finale. We were then treated to a heavy-funk bass solo followed by a hard-edged, non-indulgent drum solo. At the climax of this the other musicians quietly returned to the stage and with telepathically-perfect timing played the last verse of the finale as though nothing had happened.

This was an enjoyable and humble performance from five extremely talented musicians, and it is to the HiFi Club's credit that they continue to provide us with such calibre of entertainment!" - Christopher Workman (aka Dr Bod)

	A few photos of Lonnie & his band in action, courtesy of Alex Coley

Also, if you want more information I found a few good LLS sites:-

http://www.lovelandrecords.com/  (brief biography and discography)

http://members.aol.com/ilebaba/adeleke/discsmith.html    (very detailed discography)

http://www.soul-patrol.com/jazz/lonnie.htm    (black history perspective)