Jimmy Smith

Jimmy Smith Root Down (Verve 1972)

- Francois Leave a comment

Organist Jimmy Smith had been preoccupied with funk jazz before, but none of his releases matched Root Down, released on Verve in 1972.

Jimmy Smith - Root Down

Personnel

Jimmy Smith (organ), Arthur Adams (guitar), Steve Williams (harmonica A3), Wilton Felder (bass), Buck Clarke (congas), Paul Humphrey (drums)

Recorded

on February 8, 1972 at the Bombay Bicycle Club, Los Angeles.

Released

as V-8806 in 1972

Track listing

Side A:
Sagg Shootin’ His Arrow
For Everyone Under The Sun
After Hours
Side B:
Root Down (And Get It)
Let’s Stay Together
Slow Down Sagg


By 1972, Jimmy Smith, the modern organ jazz pioneer who had been the most popular Hammond B3 player from his explosive start on Blue Note in 1956, was still ridin’ high. He was the biggest seller among his colleagues and toured the European circuit to much acclaim, notably the Montreux Jazz Festival. But none of his late sixties albums contained the grit and grease that was so essential to the output of the rivaling company, the independent Prestige Records, a style that was developed by the special talents of groove monsters like Charles Earland, Charles Kynard, Rusty Bryant, Idris Muhammad and Bernard Purdie. The Champ was challenged and a good fight was on.

And Root Down, recorded live on February 8 at the Bombay Bicycle Club in Los Angeles, was devoid of sucker punches. There were no bicycle races that night either. It was more like a gathering of tonewheels on the outskirts of town. Burning metal, lightning fast drawbars, bass pedals crossing the finishing line with the street crowd going berserk… Arthur Adams was featured on guitar, Steve Williams on harmonica, Wilton Felder on bass, Paul Humphrey on drums and Buck Clarke on percussion. A rock-solid, charged group that pushed maestro Smith to the edge of the circuit, an inch away from the bales of hay, which is the place where the best works of arts are usually created.

Let’s jam, y’all, let’s jam. This is music that speaks to the gut and the groin. The uptempo funk blues of Sagg Shootin’ His Arrow, Root Down (famously – or infamously depending on your view – sampled by The Beastie Boys in 1994) and Slow Down Sagg stimulates Smith to travel beyond his trademark style. Here Smith, who stands on the shoulders of the blues pianists, Charlie Parker, Count Basie and Wild Bill Davis, allows his long lines to segue into stretches of dissonance. His pitch is unwavering, his attack ferocious. Smith’s lurid funk tales are commented upon by the blistering wah-wah guitar of Arthur Adams. Fire meets fire.

Smith hurls himself into the notes of the soul tunes For Everyone Under The Sun and Al Green’ Let’s Stay Together like a tiger on a deer. Adams’ spiky (non-wah-wah) stuff mirrors The Meters’ indelible New Orleans Funk picker, Leo Nocentelli, albeit less behind the beat, more speedy. The tandem of drummer Paul Humphrey and bassist Wilton Felder bounces but never wobbles, makes myriad U-turns but never gets lost. Felder, saxophonist and co-leader of the successful funk jazz and crossover group The Crusaders in everyday life, offers a solo that is well worthwhile.

A great show in the hip pocket of Jimmy Smith. The atmosphere is electric. Obviously, the music reaches out beyond the confines of the Bombay Bicycle Club. Smith and his relatively younger lions are talkin’ to the boyz in da hood, who loved and understood the messages of Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, Gil Scott-Heron. Root Down is ghetto music, it’s Watts on fire and wax, a victory of rhythm miles away from the tepid world of Ed Sullivan. The astounding grit that the group displayed crawled out of the womb of the asphalt jungle, over depressed tenement buildings, mingles with addicts that crowd around fire pits at night… Root Down’s a reflection of turmoil but at the same time a display of force, a celebration of survival, and offers redemption in the form of smooth and sweaty soul that pinned Marvin Gaye to the wall and forced him to say sorry for that sexual healing bit.

Victory is all over the sleeve as well. The stretched arm and pointed finger clearly signify who’s boss!

The original album cut down the longer tracks to the 12inch format. Spotify offers the CD version with the complete performances. Listen below.

Jimmy Smith The Cat (Verve 1964)

- Francois Leave a comment

During the sixties organ star Jimmy Smith, who single-handedly turned the Hammond B3 organ into a viable modern jazz instrument in the mid-late fifties, recorded a string of generally very popular big band albums under the guidance of Verve’s succesful producer Creed Taylor.

Jimmy Smith - The Cat

Personnel

Jimmy Smith (organ), Kenny Burrell (guitar), George Duvivier (bass), Grady Tate (drums), Lalo Schifrin (arranger, conductor) and a big band including Thad Jones, Jimmy Cleveland, Ernie Royal and Snooky Young

Recorded

on April 27-29 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as V-8587 in 1964

Track listing

Side A
Theme From ‘Joy House’
The Cat (From The MGM Motion Picture ‘Joy House’)
Basin Street Blues
Main Title From ‘The Carpetbaggers’
Side B
Chicago Serenade
St. Louis Blues
Delon’s Blues
Blues In The Night


The first tentative effort, Bashin’ (side B was dedicated to trio work only) was an immediate smash hit. The best of those albums, like Hobo Flats, Any Number Can Win and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf involved meaty brass and reed support that stirred up the organist’s inimitable bebop and blues runs to fiery heights. A couple of albums suffered from mediocre, overproduced arrangements and the organist’s wish to put his ‘singing’ abilities in the limelight. Stay away from 1968’s Stay Loose would be my advice, unless you need to chase away the neighbour’s pet alligator.

1964’s The Cat finds Smith at the height of his popularity. The title track is what you’d call a mod classic. Meaning a bunch of English geeks got hip to it in the eighties and started spinning it in the big city’s burgeoning underground clubs, to much acclaim. Understandably, since The Cat’s a blast from start to finish, an uptempo swinger with a firm backbeat and full-bodied, sweeping Lalo Schifrin arrangements which are cut through by boiling Smith phrases.

Old warhorse Basin Street Blues is another highlight, taken at a brisk pace with funky Chicago blues support by drummer Grady Tate and sparse orchestral blasts. Theme From ‘Joy House’ and Main Title From ‘The Carpetbaggers’ are uptempo gems as well, more satisfying in the end than solid but more commonplace slow blues tunes like Delon’s Blues and Blues In The Night.

The Cat is part of the proof that, when in the right surroundings, Jimmy Smith raised the mixing of organ and orchestra to another level.

Jimmy Smith Prayer Meetin’ (Blue Note 1964)

- Francois Leave a comment

This is the Jimmy Smith I like the most. Not yet hindered by various concepts initiated by Verve’s Creed Taylor, which thrusted Smith into stardom. Some of those (big band) jobs were top-notch or fantastic, such as the collaborations with Wes Montgomery and Root Down, some of them mediocre, notably those that took Jimmy into singing (grunting) territory. Like Smith’s ‘hazardous-to-your-health faux pas from 1968, Stay Loose. Prayer Meetin’s the real deal: Jimmy Smith in full blues and gospel flight.

prayer1

Personnel

Jimmy Smith (organ), Stanley Turrentine (tenor sax), Quinten Warren (guitar), Donald Bailey (drums)

Recorded

on February 8, 1963 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs

Released

as BLP 4164 in 1964

Track listing

Side A
Side A:
Prayer Meetin’
I Almost Lost My Mind
Stone Cold Dead In The Market
Side B:
When The Saints Go Marching In
Red Top
Picknickin’


Fact is, Smith’s organ is a voice in itself; he don’t need no larynx. Jimmy Smith, applauded for what not, might best be described as a ‘talkin’ player. Here is a man who conveys uncluttered, basic emotions through B3 and Leslie speaker that sometimes eerily closely resemble the inflections of jazz vocals, albeit often in the tempo of a bop-oriented Speedy Gonzales.

The same thing, I might add, is true for tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, who has a really moving solo in the ballad I Almost Lost My Mind; there is a lot of ‘breath’ in his playing – maybe best described as the whispering of sweet words in someone’s ear – which assuredly gets to you. Surely these qualities make Smith and Turrentine such a good match on Prayer Meetin’, and on other recordings such as Back At The Chicken Shack as well.

Incidentally, during one prolific week prior to the session that resulted in Prayer Meetin’, Smith recorded three more albums. This way Smith fulfilled his Blue Note contract before leaving to Verve. (of course, Jimmy did make a couple of great albums for Verve; collaborations with Wes Montgomery and Root Down are cases in point.)

Jimmy Smith has a way of stimulating solo players. This is illustrated very well in Red Top, wherein Smith uses block chords and staccato, violent lines, creating fire hazard to Turrentine’s already cookin’ solo. Thereafter alarm clock attacks straight from Art Blakey’s book signal the end of the Turrentine line and Jimmy takes his place (and time) telling a story, pushing notes to the limit, utilizing a lot of repetition for further hypnotic effect.

Indeed, as a sermon Prayer Meetin’ is a redeeming exercise.