Lonnie Liston Smith - born on December 28, 1940 in Richmond, Virginia - is a jazz, R&B, soul and funk keyboard player. Born into a musical family, he studied music as a child and at university and performed locally. After moving to New York City in 1963, he had a stint accompanying singer Betty Carter and made records with saxophonist Roland Kirk. He spent time with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and with saxophonist Pharoah Sanders' band. Lonnie Liston Smith played on sessions by Sanders, saxophonist Gato Barbieri and trumpet player Miles Davis. In 1973, he prepared for his first album as a leader and formed the band Cosmic Echoes, which originally consisted of musicians such as James Mtume (congas/percussion), Joe Beck (guitar), Cecil McBee (bass), and George Barron (saxophone). The group’s first album was 1973’s Astral Traveling, followed a year later by Cosmic Funk (1974). His next two albums, both released in 1975, entered the Top 30 on Billboard’s R&B Albums chart: Expansions and Visions of a New World. They released a pair of albums in 1976 - Reflections of a Golden Dream and Renaissance - both of which appeared on the Billboard R&B Albums chart. Since Cosmic Echoes had a fluid line-up that would change from one album to the next, Lonnie Liston Smith dropped the band name and continued to record and tour under his own name.