Jazz Articles about Jimmy Smith

Jimmy Smith: The Fantastic Jimmy Smith

by David Rickert
June 14, 2005

If you're ignorant like I was, you may have thought that A New Sound, A New Star featured the very first Jimmy Smith recordings. But actually he recorded a number of singles a few years before that for the obscure Bruce label. The fact that these early recordings have been out of print for forty years is surprising, given the insatiable appetite of Smith fans for his work. But Empiremusicwerks has recently reissued these early tracks, giving us a glimpse ...

Pulling Out All the Stops

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
March 7, 2005

If you were to make a list of all of the great jazz musicians to come out of Philadelphia, it would number more than the calories in a cheese steak sandwich. But if you were to narrow it down by instrument, when it came to the organ section, the list would be as short as the line to see Oliver Stone's Alexander.

Though at first glance the list might not look impressive, unless you were to write it in really ...

Jimmy Smith: The Boss

by Germein Linares
March 1, 2005

Recorded at Paschal's La Carousel in Atlanta, Georgia, this '68 date has Jimmy Smith's organ paired with George Benson and Nathan Page on guitar as well as Donald Bailey on drums. The three originals, “Some of My Best Friends Are Blues," “The Boss," and “Fingers," are typical of Smith's compositions with organ and guitar conjuring electrified versions of the blues, soul and jazz. The Burt Bacharach tune, “This Guy's In Love With You," comes with more sophistication in its chords ...

Jimmy Smith: Retrospective

by Germein Linares
February 22, 2005

Jimmy Smith Retrospective Blue Note Records 2004

Blue Note Records' 4-CD Retrospective is a 38-song summary of Jimmy Smith's music from 1956-62. Along with artists like Art Blakey and Horace Silver, Smith not only came to define the “Blue Note" sound, he also molded and enriched the genres of hard bop and soul jazz. Born into a family of pianists, Smith was already an accomplished pianist by the age of ten, when he won ...

The Incredible Jimmy Smith

by Ed Hamilton
February 16, 2005

February is recognized as Black History Month and inventors of African American Heritage are honored. Louis Latimer did not invent the light bulb but invented the light inside as James Oscar Smith did not invent the Hammond B-3 organ, but invented the Jazz sound played never before until he laid his fingers on the 2-story set of ivory and black keys and bass foot pedals.

I had gone to sleep Wednesday night, February 9, thinking that I would get Kenny ...

Jazz Organ Stories: Jimmy Smith

by AAJ Staff
February 10, 2005

By Pete Fallico

Nineteen ninety-four marks forty years for Jimmy Smith on the Hammond organ. Although he made the switch from the piano in 1953, Jimmy did not really find his voice on the organ until the following year. Woodshedding took place in the warehouse where he and his father worked as plasterers. Jimmy recalls: “I got my organ from a loan shark had it shipped to the warehouse. I stayed in that warehouse, I would say, six months to ...

Jimmy Smith: NEA Jazz Master

by AAJ Staff
February 10, 2005

By Pete Fallico The following documents were submitted to the National Endowment For The Arts by the Jazz Organ Fellowship in early 2004. To the best of our knowledge our efforts were directly responsible for the eventual selection of Jimmy as one of their Jazz Masters for the year 2005. Jazz Organ Fellowship Document #1 Jimmy Smith became a jazz innovator when, in the mid-fifties, he revolutionized the sound of jazz organ. Heretofore, ...