Lyman Woodard (March 3, 1942 – February 25, 2009) was a Detroit-based jazz organist known for fusing his music with Latin and Afro-Cuban-inspired rhythms.
But releases – such as his 1975 Saturday Night Special – and his namesake outfit, the Lyman Woodard Organization, were in the jazz-funk idiom.
Before establishing the Lyman Woodard Organization, he comprised a jazz trio with drummer Melvin Davis and guitarist Dennis Coffey; the ensemble performed numerous shows at a nightclub called Cobb's Corner.
[2] In 1979, Woodard returned to Cobb's Corner with the Organization to record Don't Stop the Groove, for the Corridor label.
In March 2009, Wax Poetics Records reissued a limited pressing of Saturday Night Special as a double LP on 180-gram vinyl.