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Jimmy Smith: Groovin’ at Smalls Paradise – 1957

By Marc Davis

I love the jazz organ. I love Jimmy Smith. But I don't love Groovin' at Smalls Paradise. When Smith burst onto the scene in 1956, he was a genuine phenomenon. Not only was he wildly popular, but also wildly prolific. In just three years, from 1956 to 1958, Smith put out a mind-boggling 23 albums. Blue Note had a bona fide star, and the label sure knew how to milk the craze. Some of those records ...

Jimmy Smith: Master of the Hammond B-3

By Mark Sabbatini

Jimmy Smith ignited a jazz revolution on an instrument associated at the time with ballparks, despite never playing one until the age of 28. His legendary multi-part technique on the Hammond B-3 organ, playing bass with the foot pedals and Charlie Parker-like single-line passages with his right hand, shook up the traditional trio as co-players could explore new roles. Yet, while the consensus is Smith's playing is a jazz landmark, his recordings fall short of such acclaim.

Jimmy Smith: Midnight Special – Blue Note 4078

By Marc Davis

The history of jazz is filled with great pairs: Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn--Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker--Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond--Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul. Add one more pair to the list: Jimmy Smith and Stanley Turrentine. Smith was the ground-breaking organist, steeped in the blues, who introduced the Hammond B-3 as a legitimate hard bop alternative to the piano. Turrentine was the legendary tenor saxman, steeped in the blues, who became synonymous with 1960s ...

Jimmy Smith: A New Sound, A New Star, Vol. 1 and 2 – Blue Note 1512 and 1514

By Marc Davis

Listening to Jimmy Smith's early recordings is like listening to Chuck Berry play “Johnny B. Goode." Today, every rock guitarist from junior high school on knows the riff and can play it by heart. But Chuck Berry did it first, and arguably best. There were no great rock guitar licks before Chuck Berry. He created the template. It's the same with Jimmy Smith. Today, there are dozens of jazz organists who can play bop, blues and beyond. They're ...

Jimmy Smith: Plays Fats Waller

By Chris M. Slawecki

Fats Waller, whose rollicking contributions have enlivened the American songbook since the 1930s, once wrote, “Well, I really love the organ. I can get so much color from it than the piano that it really sends me." About a generation later, Jimmy Smith fell in love with the Hammond B-3 organ.

Here in the company of guitarist Quentin Warren and drummer Donald Bailey (both of whom played on every Smith trio recording for five decades), the latter pays ...

Organ Jazz: Jimmy Smith & Gloria Coleman

By Graham L. Flanagan

Jimmy Smith Jimmy Smith at Club Baby Grand, Vol. 1 & 2 (RVG) Blue Note 2008 Gloria Coleman Sweet Missy Doodlin' 2008

Ever since pianist Wild Bill Davis made his landmark transition to the Hammond organ in 1950, jazz has never been the same. A device once deemed suitable strictly for ...

Jimmy Smith: Plays Fats Waller

By David Rickert

It makes sense that Jimmy Smith recorded an album's worth of Fats Waller tunes, since Waller himself was a pioneer on the organ in a jazz context. But it makes even more sense when you consider that Smith applied the single note runs of a pianist to his instrument, and Waller, no slouch on the piano himself, must have been an irresistible target for Smith's treatment.Despite the lineup, any of Jimmy Smith's Blue Note records are pretty much ...

The Fantastic Jimmy Smith; At the Organ, Volume 3

By Joel Roberts

It's often been said that the late Jimmy Smith did the same thing for the Hammond organ that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and J.J. Johnson and Charlie Christian did for their instruments. That is, launch it into the age of modern jazz with a revolutionary approach, forever changing how it would be played. Two remastered reissues give a fascinating glimpse of that revolution in progress.

Jimmy Smith The Fantastic Jimmy Smith Empire Masterwerks ...

Jimmy Smith: Me and Mr. Johnson

By AAJ Staff

Back in the day, when you said organ, you were talking about one of two things: a part of the body or the Hammond B-3. Jazz organ masters like Larry Young and Jimmy Smith did not play the Minimoog or the Casio Tectronic, they played the B-3. Nowadays the kids are picking up a new keyboard a week, whatever the latest gadget may be, but they still can't play the original organ from 1955.

Philadelphia-bred organ master Jimmy Smith is ...

Jimmy Smith: Softly As A Summer Breeze

By Chris May

An oddity and supporting cast player in the Jimmy Smith canon, Softly As A Summer Breeze is nonetheless a welcome addition to Blue Note's Rudy Van Gelder remasters programme, bringing together three distinct sessions with partially overlapping personnel. All the evidence suggests the first four tracks were originally recorded for a Kenny Burrell album which was never released, and the next two for a Jimmy Smith set which likewise didn't materialise. The final four tracks, featuring vocalist Bill Henderson, were ...

Jimmy Smith: Music for Lovers

By Norman Weinstein

This Music for Lovers compilation is probably the most restrained Jimmy Smith collection ever compiled, and it allows a rarely presented side of Smith's work from 1957-1960 to be spotlit. It's also an ideal showcase for Smith as delicately tasteful accompanist. An apt comparison would be to Oscar Peterson during the '50s. All that virtouso grandstanding could chill to a hush when he accompanied, say, Billie Holiday. The same is true about Smith. The first tune of ...

Jimmy Smith: Retrospective

By Sean Patrick Fitzell

He might not have been the first jazz organist, but Jimmy Smith's place in jazz history as the first to modernize and popularize its use as a featured jazz instrument is secure. His innovative style created the sub-genre of organ jazz, which many have followed. When he died this past February at age 76, Smith was rejuvenating his career artistically; he was nominated as “best organist by the Jazz Journalist Association this year.

Released last fall, the four-CD Retrospective was ...