The Sultan of Soul and His Magic Organ Ride
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

For years I’ve considered the term “performance artist” a buzzword for a performer who gets up on a stage and does something vaguely like music, vaguely like theater, but doesn’t really do much of anything (Laurie Anderson, anybody?). Contrastingly, there’s Dr. Lonnie Smith, appearing through Sunday at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in a quartet with the outstanding saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman. Dr. Smith is not only one of the all-time masters of the Hammond B-3 organ, but is an extravagant visual performer as well.
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