Dr. Lonnie Smith's "Breathe"

Almost overnight, against all odds, this shiny silver disc has become like a narcotic to me.

Although I've never been a fan of organ jazz, I'm aware of Dr. Lonnie Smith's illustrious past. (He's neither a doctor of anything in particular nor a Sikh, although he affects a turban and beard. There's nothing affected about his music, though; it is The Thing Itself.) Played with George Benson early on, before the guitarist got signed to Warner Bros. and started making bank as a singer. Played with Lou Donaldson and got signed to Blue Note (a label to which he returned in 2016). Cut a lot of genre-defining sides for them and Groove Merchant in the '60s and '70s. Works with a classic trio, just organ, guitar, and drums. 

For this live date, recorded at NYC's Jazz Standard, Dr. Lonnie added a four-piece horn section: tenor and bari saxes, trumpet, trombone. Besides a funked-up version of Monk's "Epistrophy," most of the music here is his: a sprightly waltz, a blues, a funk groove, a ballad. His daughter sings a gospel-tinged number to remind us where the Hammond B-3 sound originated. This is heavy music, as I can attest, having once helped move one of the 400-pound behemoths over the bar of a joint in Albany, NY. When I was a snotnose dipping a toe in jazz, this stuff was over my head, the sound that hipper, middle-aged Black dudes liked to listen to, not dilettantes like myself who were struggling to relate jazz to the blues-rock and maybe Frank Zappa we'd teethed on.

I will admit that what pulled me in to Breathe is the two studio-recorded songs (strategically placed at the beginning and end of the album) that Iggy Pop sings. (With Detroit guy Don Was currently helming Blue Note, can this be a precursor to signing the Ig to the label? Film, as they say, at 11.) "Why Can't We Live Together" is Timmy Thomas' 1972 hit, notable for its early drum-machine bossa nova beat, on which the first band I ever played in assigned me to learn Timmy's organ part. Lonnie previously covered Donovan's "Sunshine Superman," on his 1970 Move Your Hand LP, and I just noticed this week that the tune has the same beat as "Funhouse." Going back, it's also on "Son of Ice Bag," which opened Lonnie's Think album in 1969. Could Iggy be belatedly acknowledging a secret influence? One wonders.

What's unmistakable here is that Iggy no longer feels obliged to inhabit his persona to sing these songs. Can Jim Osterberg have grown tired of the role? In place of the edgy "godfather of punk," we hear a nice retired guy from Miami, taking it easy. It reminds me of the episode of Parts Unknown where Iggy tells poor Tony Bourdain at the end that the best thing in life is to be loved. My two cents: From "Another year with nothing to do" to "To be loved" in 50 years is a trip worth taking. Iggy's hard-won repose is just what I need to hear in the now. And Dr. Lonnie Smith has made of me, late in the day, an organ jazz fan.