Artist Name
Jimmy Smith

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Album Releases view
2008 - Plays Fats Waller
2008 - Live at the Village Gate
2008 - Hobo Flats
2006 - Softly as a Summer Breeze
2004 - Retrospective
2002 - La Métamorphose des Cloportes
2001 - Fourmost Return
2000 - Bucket
2000 - Dot Com Blues
2000 - House Party
1999 - Cool Blues
1999 - Groovin' at Smalls' Paradise
1999 - Cool Blues
1998 - Standards
1997 - Bashin'
1996 - Cherokee
1996 - All the Way Live
1996 - Angel Eyes
1995 - Damn!
1994 - Verve Jazz Masters 29
1993 - Sum Serious Blues
1991 - Fourmost
1989 - Midnight Special
1989 - Prime Time
1989 - Crazy! Baby
1982 - Off the Top
1980 - The Cat Strikes Again...
1978 - Unfinished Business
1977 - Sit on It!
1977 - It's Necessary
1975 - '75
1974 - Blacksmith
1974 - Paid In Full
1973 - Portuguese Soul
1972 - Bluesmith
1972 - Root Down
1971 - I'm Gon' Git Myself Together
1971 - In a Plain Brown Wrapper
1969 - Groove Drops
1969 - Further Adventures of Jimmy and Wes
1968 - The Boss
1967 - I'm Movin' On
1967 - Respect
1966 - Jimmy & Wes: The Dynamic Duo
1966 - Peter & The Wolf
1965 - Monster
1965 - Organ Grinder Swing
1964 - Christmas '64
1964 - The Cat
1963 - Back at the Chicken Shack
1963 - Rockin' the Boat
1963 - Any Number Can Win
1962 - Bashin' - The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith
1960 - Prayer Meetin'
1959 - Home Cookin'
1958 - The Sermon!
1957 - The Sounds of Jimmy Smith
1957 - A Date With Jimmy Smith, Volume 2
1957 - A Date With Jimmy Smith, Volume 1
1957 - Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Volume 1
1956 - A New Sound, a New Star: Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Volume 1
1956 - The Incredible Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Volume 3
1956 - At Club “Baby Grand” Wilmington, Delaware, Volume 2
1956 - At Club “Baby Grand” Wilmington, Delaware, Volume 1
1956 - A New Sound, a New Star: Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Volume 2
0 - Go for Whatcha Know
0 - Lonesome Road
0 - Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Volume 2
0 - Jimmy Smith Plays Pretty Just for You

Members
1 Male

Origin
Pennsylvania, USA

Genre
Jazz

Style
Jazz

Mood
Happy

Born

1925

Active
--- 2005

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Alternate Name
The Incredible Jimmy Smith

Most Loved Tracks
4 users Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack
4 users Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack
4 users Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack
4 users Jimmy Smith - The Cat
4 users Jimmy Smith - Walk on the Wild Side


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Artist Biography
Available in:
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.
Not a single album is listed among the 200 most important recordings in the book Essential Jazz Library by New York Times critic Ben Ratcliff. The Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD notes "it was disappointing...to hear how quickly Smith's albums become formulaic." Rolling Stone calls much of his late career work "substandard."
The joy in building a Smith collection is one can almost always count on his worthwhile albums being fun, fast, and spiritual blues romps with lots of his patented tonal color.
The drawback is... pretty much the same thing.
There's a sameness to much of his work, and many of his "outside the box" efforts into genres such as fusion and soundtracks are less than stellar. Adding to this discouragement is a number of his best early albums are out of print.
Still, it's hard to dispute the more than 100 albums in Smith's discography feature not only a rich collection of commercially popular music, but works of exceptional artistry.
Other players such as Count Basie experimented with the organ as far back as the 1930s, but Smith pioneered the fusion of R&B, gospel and jazz in addition to his unique playing style. He was an enormous success almost immediately and, following a commercial and critical lull during the 1970s and '80s, rebounded with several quality late-career recordings and saw his work influence artists from organist Joey DeFrancesco to hip-hop and jam bands incorporating digital samples of Smith's playing into their performances.
He died February 8, 2005, in his sleep at the age of 76 at his Scottsdale, Arizona, home.
"Jimmy was one of the greatest and most innovative musicians of our time," wrote DeFrancesco in a message at his Web site dated Feb. 9, 2005, six days before the release of Legacy, his second album recorded with Smith. "I loved the man and I love the music. He was my idol, my mentor and my friend."
Smith was born in 1928 in Norristown, Pa., near Philadelphia, to a musically inclined family that saw him playing piano and bass as a youth. This combination proved an essential element of his one-man- band approach on the organ. He joined the Navy at age 15 to escape his hometown and after World War II studied at several Philadelphia music schools. He subsequently played piano for local R&B groups during the 1940s and 50s.
He explains his development on the organ in an oft-quoted interview:
"I got my organ from a loan shark and had it shipped to the warehouse," he said. "I stayed in that warehouse, I would say, six months to a year. I would do just like the guys do—take my lunch, then I'd go and set down at this beast. Nobody showed my anything, man, so I had to fiddle around with my stops."
His New York debut came in 1956 with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and the organist was an almost immediate hit.
Smith's early recordings were so successful Blue Note set up a special division to develop the genre he formed. He typically recorded numerous projects every year for the label between the late 1950s and his departure in 1962, including career highlights such as 1957s Groovin At Small's Paradise and 1960s Back At The Chicken Shack, perhaps his best-known album. Many are also noteworthy for all-star rosters of co-players such as guitarist Kenny Burrell, trumpeter Blue Mitchell, and saxophonists Stanley Turrentine and Jackie McLean.
His association with Verve Records beginning in 1962 saw both an expansion and limitation of his work. Among the most successful were a pair of albums recorded with guitarist Wes Montgomery and 1962's Bashin': The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith, with "Walk On The Wild Side" from the latter album making pop charts as a single.
However, new formats such as big bands often featured something other than the lengthy blowing sessions best suited to his strength of building up passages over time. Many also sought crossover audiences—toying, for instance, with show tunes and hard rock—and are frequently considered weak points of his discography.
Smith struggles continued during the 1970s as synthesizers caused the B-3 to fall out of audience favor. He toured regularly until 1975, when he opened a Los Angeles jazz club with his wife, Lola. Recordings and appearances became infrequent and undistinguished until the early 1980s and, while many subsequent recordings are quality dates, the frequency of new albums continued to be sparse. Later-career highlights include two albums from a 1990 live reunion with Burrell and Turrentine ( Fourmost and Fourmost Return), and the live 1999 Incredible! collaboration with DeFrancesco.
A revival of interest in the B-3 sound also resulted in Smith's music influencing and being performed by a wide range of players such as John Medeski and the Beastie Boys (noteworthy for their use of "Root Down"). The elder organist, who Miles Davis once proclaimed the "eighth wonder of the world," also reemerged as a popular performer, including weekly jam sessions with DeFrancesco during the years preceding his death.
"He had a spirit and a sound that comes across, and there was nothing like it," DeFrancesco said in a newspaper interview. "He was full of fire and soul, just the complete musician."


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Last Edit by laurent94jbl1
15th Mar 2018

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