Dr. Lonnie Smith

Buffalo to New York

Lonnie Smith was born on July 3, 1942 in Lackawanna, New York, a Buffalo suburb, though Blue Note and the NEA say Buffalo. His mother was a vocalist who loved jazz, blues and gospel, and the family sang spirituals together and had a radio program; he sang in vocal groups before playing an instrument and began on trumpet in a junior high band. His first organ came from Art Kubera's music store in Buffalo, where Kubera told him if he could get it out the door it was his. He learned on the bandstand by ear and joined Sammy Bryan's group at about 20.

He moved to New York in 1965 and met the guitarist George Benson, then in Jack McDuff's band. The George Benson Quartet signed with Columbia through John Hammond, making It's Uptown (1966) and The George Benson Cookbook (1967), and Smith's first solo album was Finger Lickin' Good Soul Organ (1967). The same year he made his Blue Note debut as a sideman on Lou Donaldson's Alligator Bogaloo, then Mr. Shing-A-Ling.

Blue Note, the turban and the long middle

On Blue Note as a leader he made Think! (1968), Turning Point (1969), the live Move Your Hand (recorded at the Club Harlem in Atlantic City in August 1969) and Drives (1970), plus Live at Club Mozambique, recorded in Detroit on May 21, 1970 and not released until 1995. Down Beat named him Top Organist in 1969. He adopted the title Doctor in the early 1970s, joking that he was not a medical doctor but could operate when it comes to this music. He said the turban had no religious meaning and that he cited Sun Ra's headwear.

He recorded Mama Wailer for Kudu in 1971, then Afro-desia (1975) and Keep on Lovin' (1976) for Groove Merchant, and spent the 1970s touring the northeastern US in small neighborhood venues. Later records include Afro Blue (1993) and Hendrix tributes Foxy Lady and Purple Haze (1994), albums for Palmetto from 2004 and his own Pilgrimage label from 2012. He rejoined Blue Note in 2015; Evolution (January 29, 2016, produced by Don Was, with Robert Glasper and Joe Lovano) was his first for the label in 45 years, followed by All in My Mind (2018, live at the Jazz Standard for his 75th birthday) and Breathe (2021, with Iggy Pop on two studio tracks).

Honors

He was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2017 and won the Jazz Journalists Association's Organ/Keyboardist of the Year nine times between 2003 and 2014. He died at home in Fort Lauderdale on September 28, 2021, aged 79. Blue Note's president Don Was called him a musical genius with a deep, funky groove and a wry, playful spirit, and Lou Donaldson said he was a very consistent organist for many years. A documentary, Dr. B3: The Soul of the Music, includes interviews with Benson, Donaldson, Was and Rudy Van Gelder. Blue Note reissued Live at Club Mozambique in 2019 and Drives in 2024.