Astral Traveling

Lonnie Liston Smith’s band was called the Cosmic Echoes, and they lived up to that name. Before striking out on his own, he’d worked with Pharoah Sanders (Karma, Thembi, Jewels Of Thought, Izipho Zam) and Miles Davis (On The Corner), and when he made his debut as a leader with this 1973 release, he continued to pursue many of the ideas he’d been swimming around in for the previous half-decade, adding gospel piano runs to rhythms drawn from African and Indian music (the band included soprano sax, guitar, bass and drums, but also congas, tabla, and tamboura). He re-recorded the title track, originally written for Thembi, and included a version of the spiritual “Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord,” which he’d arranged for Sanders. But the new material has the same blissed-out shimmer, making this the musical equivalent of sunlight hitting gently rippling waters on a spring morning.