He also backed a number of jazz singers (including Ethel Ennis) while performing in the house band at Baltimore's Royal Theater shortly after receiving his degree.

Late in 1965, Smith joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers,[1] sharing the piano position with Mike Nock and Keith Jarrett.

Beginning with a live session at The Five Spot, New York City, November 9, 1965,[3] Smith's time as a Jazz Messenger was fairly short-term, only lasting until a three-gig engagement at The Village Vanguard 26–28 April 1966;[4] by May 1966 his position was filled by Chick Corea.

In May 1967, Smith returned to working with Roland Kirk for the album sessions for Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith (Verve, 1967) before continuing his career as pianist for a year with drummer Max Roach (although once again no recordings were made of this lineup).

[1] Barbieri had by then begun to temper his free jazz excursions of the 1960s with softer Afro-Cuban and South American textures in his music, which would influence Smith's playing into new directions in the following years.

One further album, El Gato (Flying Dutchman, 1975), was released after Smith had again moved on; from 1972 he had also taken up the invitation to join Miles Davis band on electric keyboards.

[1] Over the next year, during an intense period of studio recording by Davis, various line-ups laid down a considerable number of sessions, which were later inter-cut and remixed for final release.

While passing through Miles Davis' ever-changing line-up, Smith had finally formed his own group, 'Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes' in 1973,[1] together with his partner in Pharoah Sanders group, Cecil McBee, on bass, George Barron (soprano and tenor sax), Joe Beck (guitar), David Lee Jr. (drums), James Mtume (percussion), Sonny Morgan (percussion), Badal Roy (tabla drums), and Geeta Vashi (tamboura).

For his debut album, Astral Traveling (Flying Dutchman, 1973), Smith re-recorded the title song he had composed and played on with the Pharoah Sanders band two years previous.

An instrumental album, Astral Travelling also contained a re-arrangement of the gospel standard Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord, which Smith had also previously arranged for Sanders.

[1] Although he remained close to his earlier roots with featured versions of Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" and John Coltrane's "Naima" on this album, by now Smith was heading into the smooth jazz funk/fusion style that would dominate his output from here on, with dreamy vocals and long, spacy instrumental passages underlaid by strong funky bass-lines and a distinctive use of light percussion, with a message of peace and tranquillity in both the lyrics and song titles.

"Space Princess" was written by, and featured the bass lines of 16-year-old Marcus Miller, who was discovered by Smith and also wrote the track "Night Flower" on Exotic Mysteries.

Thiele's new record label 'Doctor Jazz' (distributed through PRT in the UK) provided the perfect platform for Smith to showcase his new and critically acclaimed work of the early to mid 1980s.

David Hubbard plays a series of saxophones and flutes on the album, with Yogi Horton, Buddy Williams and Steve Thornton leading on drums and percussion.

"[citation needed] Both of the Startrak albums marked an about turn to the smooth jazz mode of the Cosmic Echoes period, Love Goddess featuring vocalist Phyllis Hyman and saxophonist Stanley Turrentine.

"Guru and the other rappers would tell me how their uncles used to make them listen to me and Miles and Donald Byrd and how they got the message" Smith told Australia's Daily Telegraph Mirror newspaper in 1995.

Despite extensive radio play, appearing on a number of compilation albums and being name-checked and sampled by an increasing number of younger musicians discovering his Cosmic Echoes output, he spent the next few years mainly involved in setting up his own label, Loveland, and it was not until 1998 that Sony International took advantage of his newfound audience by reissuing Exotic Mysteries and Loveland as a double CD.