Steve Habib Presents Dr. Marvin Smith Live At Visiones NYC

In 1992 my lifetime friend Dr. Marvin Smith and I talked to Reggie Workman about ideas we had to produce and present publically an amazing session that would last for one week and do it at Visiones Jazz Club which at the time was right down the street a few hundred feet from The Blue Note. Yeah, Elvin was there and Max Roach, all the Cats but what are we doing about my main man Marvin, who we all knew deserved to be placed in the center of it all. We contacted Kirk Lightsey and Cecil McBee to form a kick ass section and then we had Kevin Lager and Jim Finn join in for the week. The session was amazing and the music says it all... SWINGIN TO THE MAX!
Marvin and I wrote Life Has No Color, The Dance Of The BUGALU, The Black Keys and The White Keys, What, Wait For Him To Get Into Office while Kirk Lightsey wrote HABIBA and Cecil McBee wrote The Man Of Peace(The Peacemaker). Steve Habib and Marvin Smith arranged the music for the entire week and everything was performed "MPMENT TO MOMENT", "IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE" and unrehearsed. The Holy Ghost was all over the place inside and ourside. This music was OFF THE HOOK and so, so healing. People in the audience were dancing all over the place and screaming out with joy. Folks were lined up all the way down the street to get in. Everyone in Jazz was around the VILLAGE every night to try and get a seat, the place was continuously packed. I will write more on this as I remix all the rest of the music from this "LIVE AT VISIONES" SESSION.

Love Always and Always Love,
HABIB Marvin and I have been together as close friends for over 42 years. In the early 1990's we were going down to The New School and Marvin was doing some adjunct professoring there. We saw Reggie Workman quite a bit in those days and after spending much time in and out of NYC as we always did, especially in the early 1970's, we decided to put together a great week of recording and do it at Visiones, just a few hundred feet from The Blue Note and a few blocks from Sweet Basils and The Village Vanguard. Marvin performed in all these venues with Archie Shepp, Sun Ra and so many others, too numerous to mention here. The point is that we were both close friends of Elvin Jones, Max Roach and all the Cats but everyone was always busy doing their own thing. We said let's get busy and it took all these years between the 1992 Visiones sessions and now to get Marvin written up in magazines like Modern Drummer(Feb. 2011) and some others. It is still a work in progress as this genius drummer/educator friend of mine trys and trys to cut through much of the BULLSHIT that exists out there but his music is so powerful and truthful that it has finally started to show some public fruit. I can remember every Monday night at The Focus 2 on 73rd St and Amsterdam Ave. where we played with George Coleman, Rodney Jones, Walter Bishop Jr., Buster Williams, Art Blakey Jr., Evelyn Blakey, Willie Mack, Haasan Dawkins, Mickey Roker, Mickey Bass, Terbur Attenboro, Buster Williams and so,so many others. Marvin was always swinging hard and so hard that he actually pissed many people off. Marvin's nature was to always be of help and have compassion for everyone. One day, I was walking near Lincoln Center and I ran into Monk, he asked me how BuGaLu was doing and I said you know, he's still trying to make everyone happy. Monk said "yeah, I'm always telling Cats that I'm there to accompany them and make them sound better and not to concentrate on myself and how I sound. I always expect the drummer to know the song and the horn players to know the drums". Wow! This made sense to me since my friend Marvin was always telling me this. Monk was always concerned about the other guy, so was Marvin, so was Trane and so was Elvin. Art Blakey had his own way of communicating with the young players as they would go down to his LOFT and jam as Jazz Messengers. Everybody was hitting it hard, playing like there will never be another day to do it. The years that Marvin and I have spent together have been so well appreciated and I owe Jazz much and I am determined to make sure that Dr. Marvin Smith and all his lifetime efforts of teaching on the bandstand are going to be recognized forever. The Martha's Vinyard Jazz Festival was started by a friend of ours who is from Englewood, NJ named Buckey Nesbitt. Buckey helped us get in front of the large audience that year in 1992 and on that festival were Terence Blanchard and his band, Alan Onaje Gumbs, Christian McBride and our group, The Experience with Marvin Smith, John Esposito, Drew Gress and Jim Finn. Yeah, the band tore it up and left the fire burning all these years as the festival still goes on but we haven't been back. That same year, we talked with Reggie Workman and Arnie Lawrence, Joe Chambers, Billy Harper, Charlie Persip, Barry Harris and so many others. We decided to have Kirk Lightsey and Cecil McBee join The Experience and added both Jim Finn and Kevin Lager to the band. We were at Visiones Jazz Club for a week. The place was BURNIN every night. People were dancing in the streets outside of The Blue Note and all around McDougal and 3rd. It was hard to get a seat as everyone was taken for all sets Tuesday through Sunday and all the Cats who were in town were there every night checking out Dr. Marvin Smith and of course Grammy winning Cecil McBee and Master Kirk Lightsey, still one of the most under rated piano players of the century. Cecil wrote a great song called "The Man Of Peace(The Peacemaker)' and Kirk wrote "Habiba". Marvin and I wrote, "Life Has No Color", The Dance Of The BUGALU, The White Keys and The Black Keys, What? Wait For Him To Get Into Office and many others. Some like Naked In The Truth which was recorded in an all drum group called Melting Pot, are not on this series of Live At Visiones but we will cover them at another time. Right now, This first part 1 has Softly As In A Morning Sunrise. It's so swinging with Cecil coming in strongly at the start and Kirk's great groove. Marvin's solo is so deep and when the band is swinging, you can hear Marvin screaming out with joy. Listen to how well mixed the music is for a live session and notice the mix on the drums. It captures the great, unique sound that only Marvin can make. In other video/sound captures of this series, you will hear Marvin play on glass surfaces and the floor and make beautiful harmonic sounds like a horn or a person's voice. The music is healing. During that entire year, I was very ill medically and Marvin was always there for me while I spent months in Mt. Sinai Hospital. Yeah Dr. Marvin Smith is a true friend and a talent that is to be recognized and those that haven't been exposed to him because they are young, will be and those that forgot what a "BAD ASS MOTHER FU__ER HE IS will be reminded through this series posting Live At Visiones, and all the other music that we dig up and/or create now. Marvin Smith has well over 1250 videos of his performances and we will certainly have them available to the general public. More will be written on each evening's performance with notes on each song and arrangement of this well documented archive of a Jazz Living Legend. Yes, he is alive and well and you will catch him once again LIVE at a major venue during the coming 2012 year. Things are in motion and will NEVER SLOW DOWN because It's In The Moment always! LOVE ALWAYS and ALWAYS LOVE, HABIB