Review: Lonnie Liston Smith, Planetarium

Has there ever before been live music in the chromium ball behind At-Bristol? Nobody seemed to know, but there was plenty else unique about this event, whatever. The last of a series of Red Bull Academy events in Bristol, this was a celebration of soul-jazz pioneer Lonnie Liston Smith and the 40th anniversary of his Expansions album, released on April 7, 1975. That album, and especially its title track, has often been credited in inspiring the acid jazz boom, thus leading many people to discover jazz whilst enjoying a good old dance at a hip club night.

The first part of the gig brought this story out through a Q&A session in which the great man himself and DJ/label boss Gilles Petersen were amiably quizzed, enabling Lonnie to share stories from his career as a jazz musician pre-Expansions (he worked with Art Blakey, Pharaoh Sanders and Miles Davis, among others). Gilles Petersen then explained how the album’s perfect blend of contemporary jazz improvisation had become a worldwide DJ staple by the mid-80s and a massively sampled inspiration for hip hop. Thanks to the likability of both men and the interesting content it was an amiable exchange that created a context for the music to follow: effectively a series of variations on the original Expansions theme.

It was a big line-up – bass, drums, percussion, guitar and electronics on one side, vocals and a sax/flute player on the other with Lonnie standing behind his twin keyboards in the middle. Impressively things took place in near darkness in order to make full use of the Planetarium’s spherical projection capacity: a nightmare for photography but a stunning experience as the (mostly) black and white projections mixed cosmology with geometry and entire galaxies seemed to whizz, whirl and fall on our heads. For the music of a man obsessed with cosmology, astral projection and the like it was perfect.

Warm-up tracks – including the seminal Astral Travelling – established the sound’s easy funk-tinged grooves with Samir Moulay’s fusion guitar a strong voice. But the first take on Expansions kicked any sense of cosiness into outer space with a free jazz explosion complete with Last Poets style incantation of the lyrics and a wailing vocal like Claire Tolly’s celebrated break on that Pink Floyd record: as meteors showered down it really did feel like the Great Gig In The Sky.

The celebrated triangle jangled out of the chaos for a fat-back funk version, complete with supercool flute solo, leading on to an electro-plated dance music version complete with drum machine rhythm, space guitar and warp factor bass. This in turn was succeeded by a drum and bass reading, plangent double bass and richly tinkering hi-hat echoing the extensive usage Roni Size once made of another track, Shadows, Terri Walker’s clear vocals interwoven with expressive soprano sax. On this track as with all the others drummer Moses Boyd delivered precision with economy, setting the mood of each version.

Though his own keyboards were often a restrained part of the overall sound, by this stage it was apparent that Lonnie Liston Smith could have done just about anything with his big hit, so it was almost a nonchalant shrug that accompanied the stripped down sound of triangle and bass that heralded the original tune. Washed over with cosmic keys and fast funk guitar it all just fell into place for the very eager crowd and brought proceedings to a splendid close. 

Yes, there was yet another version for a quick encore – this time laid-back Steely Dan funk verging on reggae slackness – but that really just gave us all the chance to holler respect for a man who brought jazz intelligence to the dance floor and DJ ears to the jazz world. The band filed off promptly and you couldn’t help but feel there would be a helluva after party but not for us as we descended the Planetarium’s space shuttle staircase onto Millennium Square and returned to Planet Earth.