Just announced: Cosmic Echo Live, taking place at the historic Hippodrome Theatre on September 13, will celebrate the life, music, and legacy of Richmond-born cosmic jazz icon Lonnie Liston Smith. The event will feature live performances, stories from across his remarkable career, and a heavy-weight lineup of some of Richmond’s most accomplished musicians and artists.
For many, Lonnie might not be a household name. But among DJs, producers, jazz, soul, funk musicians, hip hop artists, and vinyl-lovers who’ve spent decades searching and sampling his forgotten masterpieces, he’s long been regarded as one of the great architects of modern music.
And over the last five decades, Lonnie’s records have become some of the most sampled in rap and hip hop history, finding new listeners through artists like Jay-Z, Digable Planets, J-Cole, Stetsasonic, Madvillain, Chance the Rapper, and Mary J. Blige. At the same time, records like Expansions became foundational to DJ and club culture throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, helping usher in a generation of dance music that extended far beyond American audiences.
From a musical family in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood, Lonnie grew up immersed in music. His father was a longtime vocalist with the legendary Harmonizing Four, one of the defining gospel quartets of the 20th Century, who not only performed at the White House, but also President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s funeral in 1945.
After leaving Virginia, he emerged as one of the defining voices of New York City’s spiritual jazz movement, performing alongside the absolute titans of jazz including Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Gato Barberi before forging his own sonic identity across groundbreaking albums like Astral Traveling, Cosmic Funk, Expansions, and Visions of a New World. Eventually laying the foundations for what modern jazz, soul, funk, hip-hop, and electronic music would ultimately become.
Now, a group of musicians and filmmakers are bringing that story home to Richmond.
With Lonnie joining the celebration in person, Cosmic Echo Live will feature members of Butcher Brown alongside Grammy Award-winning artists Mad Skillz and Michael Millions, avant-garde jazz legend Plunky, Ohbliv, Nickelus F, Ronnie Luxe, Micah “Bam Bam” White, Desiree Roots, and additional special guests performing music from across his extraordinary career.
Get tickets to Cosmic Echo Live at Hippodrome Theatre on September 13 — HERE.
The show will also be more than just a traditional “tribute concert,” and will also offer audiences an exclusive first look inside Cosmic Echo, the feature-length documentary currently in production chronicling Lonnie’s incredible musical journey. Directed by Landon Shroder and Michael Thibodeau, the film traces Lonnie’s journey from Richmond to the world through his own unique perspective and interviews with the musicians, artists, producers, and collaborators who are still carrying his legacy forward.
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