Jazz Articles about Jimmy Smith

About Jimmy Smith

The Blue Note Portal

The 1973 Lincoln Continental took the curves of Topanga Canyon Boulevard like a ship in a slow swell. In the back seat sat Jimmy Smith--forty-four years old, the undisputed godfather of soul-jazz, and currently he was stewing. Damn, it's come to this, Jimmy thought, staring out at the dark oak trees sliding past the windows. Playing at some stupid ass private party in the canyon for some rich fool. Then his thoughts wandered, as they often had lately, to ...

Top Ten List

The Infinite Groove: Top 10 Classic Jazz Marathons

by Michael Ricci
March 8, 2026

Classic Jazz | Prog Rock While the “3-minute single" was the rule for radio, the jazz world of the mid-20th century operated on a different internal clock. With the arrival of the Long Play (LP) record, jazz musicians finally had the “room" to let their ideas breathe. This era gave birth to the extended jam, often referred to as a “blowing session," where the primary goal was to capture the spontaneous telepathy of a group of virtuosos. These ...

Book Review

Philadelphia Jazz

by Victor L. Schermer
May 27, 2023

Philadelphia Jazz Suzanne Cloud and Diane Turner 127 pages ISBN 978-1-4671-0784-6 Images of America Arcadia Publishing 2022 Philadelphia longs to be known as a jazz town, a city distinguished by its major contribution to the jazz legacy. There is a good reason for this. A large number of members of the jazz pantheon came up and/or made their home in Philadelphia. They include, just for ...

Readers Poll Results

Your Favorite Hammond B-3 Organists

by Michael Ricci
December 8, 2022

All About Jazz member votes were tabulated and this list represents our favorite Hammond B-3 organists. Fully transparent and easily verifiable, All About Jazz's organists poll was conducted during the 2022 calendar year running from July 20th to December 7th. We want to thank every member who participated in creating this impressive list for the next generation of jazz enthusiasts to discover. 1Jimmy Smith2Joey DeFrancesco3Dr. Lonnie Smith4Larry Goldings5Shirley Scott6Larry Young7Jack McDuff8Jimmy McGriff9Charles Earland10Richard “Groove" Holmes11Tony Monaco12Pat Bianchi13Mike LeDonne14Big ...

Radio & Podcasts

It's Infrastructure Week!

by H William Stine
March 5, 2022

This week I paid tribute to the roads and highways, the bridges and tunnels, the power, communications, and water systems. I thought I'd better hurry up and celebrate Infrastructure Week before everything crumbles, fizzles out, implodes, and self-destructs. Playlist Cody Owen Stine “Paris Mismatch (Theme Music)" 00:00 Rosemary Clooney “On The Road Again" from Still On The Road (Concord) 3:40 Hilary Gardner “Brooklyn Bridge" from The Great City (Anzic Records) 07:28 Frank Sinatra “Street Of Dreams" from Sinatra ...

Radio & Podcasts

Last Dance (for Now)

by Marc Cohn
October 23, 2020

So, this is our “last dance" at least for now, and we hope to have new Gifts & Messages shows in 2021. As many of you know, even this is only a two-hour show, it's almost a full-time job, with listening to new/old music, selecting tunes, doing the program-specific research and lots of reading, in addition to actually producing the show. I'm at a time of life where other business demands my attention. Rather than do a half-assed job each ...

Meet the Staff

Meet Marc Cohn

by Marc Cohn
September 2, 2020

Meet Marc A. Cohn Dr. Cohn is a New Yorker-in-exile and has been doing jazz radio as an avocation since 1967. He is Professor Emeritus in Seed Biology at Louisiana State University, where he has won numerous teaching awards. He is a widely recognized authority on seed dormancy, is Editor Emeritus of Seed Science Research (the premier scientific journal in the field), and is a recipient of the Seed Science Award (nationally, the most prestigious research award in seed biology) ...