Ronnie Foster

Renowned for a groove-centered approach steeped in funk and R&B, soul-jazz organist Ronnie Foster first attracted attention through his contributions to guitarist Grant Green’s projects. He soon launched a series of earthy, funk-infused Blue Note LPs during the 1970s—Two Headed Freap, On the Avenue, and Cheshire Cat among them—that later attained cult status and shaped numerous hip-hop and acid-jazz recordings. Parallel to those releases, Foster built a thriving sideman résumé alongside George Benson, Roberta Flack, Stanley Turrentine, Chaka Khan, and additional artists, while also producing contemporary-jazz efforts that reached the Top 30, such as Roger Smith’s Both Sides and the Will Downing–Gerald Albright collaboration Pleasures of the Night. After years largely spent offstage, he resurfaced in 2022 with Reboot, his sixth Blue Note title.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Foster studied piano in the classical tradition during childhood yet gravitated toward jazz in his teens. An impromptu jam session featuring an organ prompted his decisive shift to that instrument; he absorbed Jimmy Smith’s recordings before exploring the freer language of Larry Young. Local organist Joe Madison offered guidance, and Foster honed his technique by renting practice time at sixty cents per hour. He gradually secured club dates in Buffalo and New York, performing alongside Stanley Turrentine, Grant Green, and George Benson. By the early 1970s he had assembled the ensemble Energy II. Green invited him to appear on the live album Alive, whose results so impressed Blue Note executive Dr. George Butler that a recording contract followed.

Foster tracked his Blue Note debut, the soul-jazz set Two Headed Freap, in January 1972; the LP showcased original material including “Mystic Brew” alongside covers of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” and the Kenny Gamble–Leon Huff composition “Drowning in the Sea of Love.” Sweet Revival, cut the following December, again emphasized covers and enlisted funk drummer Bernard Purdie. Live at Montreux was recorded in July 1973, On the Avenue appeared in 1974, and Cheshire Cat closed his initial Blue Note run in 1975. He then signed with Columbia, issuing Love Satellite in 1978 and Delight in 1979. A later Pro Jazz session yielded The Racer, after which Foster largely stepped away from bandleading in the early 1980s to concentrate on session work.

Throughout the 1970s he contributed to multiple George Benson dates as well as projects by Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Earl Klugh, Jimmy Ponder, Stanley Clarke, and Lalo Schifrin. The 1980s found him continuing session duties with Jimmy Smith, Klugh, Flack, Harvey Mason, Stanley Turrentine, David Sanborn, Djavan, and Grover Washington, Jr. In the 1990s he maintained similar alliances while adding Lee Ritenour, Roland Vazquez, and the Temptations; production credits included Will Downing and Gerald Albright’s 1998 album Pleasures of the Night, which topped Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Albums chart, and Roger Smith’s Both Sides, which reached number 24 the next year.

During this period, Foster’s earlier catalog drew renewed interest from sample-based producers; A Tribe Called Quest famously lifted “Mystic Brew” from Two Headed Freap as the foundation for “Electric Relaxation” on the 1994 album Midnight Marauders. Production work persisted into the 2000s with further George Benson and Will Downing sessions plus recordings by Najee and Chayanne. In 2022 Foster returned to Blue Note with Reboot—his first solo album in more than three decades—revisiting his classic soul-jazz idiom in a trio completed by drummer Chris Foster, guitarist Michael O’Neill, conga player Lenny Castro, and additional musicians.