A Garden of Peace

A Garden of Peace

Lonnie Liston Smith

“Garden Of Peace” is almost fragile in its simplicity. Without accompaniment, playing on an acoustic grand piano with an electric piano overdub, Smith traces out a melodic “quiet place” to close out a tracklist dominated by Marcus Miller basslines and Donald Smith vocals

Decades later, Smiths “quiet place” would find a new popularity among hip-hop artists. Jay-Z sampled “Garden” for his 1996 Dead Presidents, a song which helped solidify his hip-hop icon status. In 2006, Mary J Blige sampled the melody in Take Me As I Am from her Grammy-Award winning The Breakthrough album. All in all, “Garden of Peace” has been sampled in almost 70 songs by a diverse range of artists; from Stacie Orrico to Meek Mill.