Lonnie Liston Smith is a jazz artist from Richmond, Virginia who is known for both his solo material and for his work with Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes. With a firey brand of soul and funk-induced jazz fusion, the multi-instrumentalist, renowned for his work on keyboard and piano, joined Art Blakey's sextet The Jazz Messengers, in 1965, followed by a stint in Miles Davis' band a few years later. Smith formed The Cosmic Echoes in 1973, and went on to play with the ensemble for over a decade, releasing records such as Astral Traveling and Reflections of a Golden Dream.