Lyman Woodard (March 3, 1942 – February 25, 2009) was a

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

-based

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

organist known for fusing his music with Latin and Afro-Cuban-inspired rhythms. From the late 1960s, Woodard recorded with Motown acts, and served as musical director for Martha and the Vandellas. 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. In 1968, Woodard and Melvin Davis recorded the album ''Hair And Thangs'' with Dennis Coffey. Although the album was released as a solo project by Dennis Coffey in 1969, a single containing "It's Your Thing" ("''It's Your Thang''" on the LP) and "River Rouge" was released with the artist(s) as "Dennis Coffey and the Lyman Woodard Trio". In 1979, Woodard returned to Cobb's Corner with the Organization to record ''Don't Stop the Groove'', for the Corridor label. The 1987 recording, ''Dedicacion'', featured violinist

Regina Carter Regina Carter (born August 6, 1966) is an American jazz violinist. She is the cousin of jazz saxophonist James Carter. Early life Carter was born in Detroit and was one of three children in her family. She began piano lessons at the age of t ...

. In March 2009,

Wax Poetics ''Wax Poetics'' is a quarterly American music magazine dedicated to vintage and contemporary jazz, funk, soul, Latin, hip-hop, reggae, blues, and R&B in the crate-digger tradition; the name of the magazine is itself an allusion to vinyl rec ...

Records reissued a limited pressing of ''Saturday Night Special'' as a double LP on 180-gram vinyl.

Discography

*''Live at J.J's lounge - 1974 *''Saturday Night Special'' ( Strata Records, 1975) *''Don't Stop the Groove'' (Corridor, 1979) *''Dedicacion'' (Corridor, 1987) *''74/93 Live At Last !'' (Uuquipleu, 1993) *''Live at the 1996 Ford Montreux Detroit Jazz Festival'' (Corridor, 1996) *''with Robert Tye Virtues of the Well'' (Corridor, 1998)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woodard, Lyman 1942 births 2009 deaths American jazz organists American male organists American jazz pianists American male pianists Jazz-funk organists Jazz-blues organists 20th-century American pianists 20th-century organists 20th-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians