Jimmy Smith (musician)
James Oscar Smith (December 8, 1925 or 1928[1] – February 8, 2005)[2] was an American jazz musician whose albums often charted on Billboard magazine. He helped popularize the Hammond B-3 organ, creating a link between jazz and 1960s soul music.
Jimmy Smith | |
---|---|
Smith at the Liri Blues Festival in 2004 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | James Oscar Smith |
Born | Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S. | December 8, 1925
Died | February 8, 2005 79) Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S. | (aged
Genres | Hard bop, mainstream jazz, jazz-funk, jazz fusion |
Occupation(s) | Musician |
Instruments | Hammond B-3 organ |
Years active | 1956–2005 |
Labels | Blue Note, Verve, Milestone, Elektra |
In 2005, Smith was awarded the NEA Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor that America bestows upon jazz musicians.[3]
Early years
There is confusion about Smith's birth year, with various sources citing either 1925 or 1928. Born James Oscar Smith in Norristown, Pennsylvania,[4] he joined his father doing a song-and-dance routine in clubs at the age of six. He began teaching himself to play the piano. When he was nine, Smith won a Philadelphia radio talent contest as a boogie-woogie pianist.[5] After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he began furthering his musical education in 1948, with a year at Royal Hamilton College of Music, then the Leo Ornstein School of Music in Philadelphia in 1949. He began exploring the Hammond organ in 1951. From 1951 to 1954 he played piano, then organ in Philly R&B bands like Don Gardner and the Sonotones. He switched to organ permanently in 1954 after hearing Wild Bill Davis.[5][6][7]
Career
He purchased his first Hammond organ, rented a warehouse to practice in and emerged after little more than a year. Upon hearing him playing in a Philadelphia club, Blue Note's Alfred Lion immediately signed him to the label and his second album, The Champ, quickly established Smith as a new star on the jazz scene. He was a prolific recording artist and, as a leader, dubbed The Incredible Jimmy Smith, he recorded around forty sessions for Blue Note in just eight years beginning in 1956. Albums from this period include The Sermon!, House Party, Home Cookin', Midnight Special, Back at the Chicken Shack and Prayer Meetin'.[4]
Smith signed to the Verve label in 1962.[4] His first album, Bashin', sold well and for the first time set Smith with a big band, led by Oliver Nelson. Further big band collaborations followed, most successfully with Lalo Schifrin for The Cat and guitarist Wes Montgomery, with whom he recorded two albums: The Dynamic Duo and Further Adventures of Jimmy and Wes. Other albums from this period include Blue Bash! and Organ Grinder Swing with Kenny Burrell, The Boss with George Benson, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Got My Mojo Working, and Hoochie Coochie Man.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Smith almost always performed live, in a trio, consisting of organ, guitar & drums.[8] The Jimmy Smith Trio performed "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and "The Sermon" in the 1964 film Get Yourself a College Girl.
In the 1970s, Smith opened his own supper club in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, at 12910 Victory Boulevard and played there regularly with Kenny Dixon on drums, Herman Riley and John F. Phillips on saxophone; also included in the band was harmonica/flute player Stanley Behrens. The 1972 album Root Down, considered a seminal influence on later generations of funk and hip-hop musicians, was recorded live at the club, albeit with a different group of backing musicians.
Later career
Holle Thee Maxwell, then known as Holly Maxwell, was Smith's vocalist for two years in the late 1970s. During a South African tour, they recorded the album Jimmy Smith Plays for the People in 1978.[9]
Smith had a career revival in the 1980s and 1990s, again recording for Blue Note and Verve, and for Elektra and Milestone.[4] He also recorded with Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson (he can be heard on the title track of the Bad album), Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Joey DeFrancesco. His last album, Dot Com Blues (Blue Thumb/Verve, 2000) was recorded with B. B. King, Dr. John, and Etta James.
Smith and his wife moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2004. She died of cancer a few months later. Smith recorded Legacy with Joey DeFrancesco, and the two prepared to go on tour.[10] However, before the tour began, Smith died on February 8, 2005 at his Scottsdale home where he was found by his manager, Robert Clayton. He died in his sleep of natural causes.[11]
Musical style
While the electric organ had been used in jazz by Fats Waller, Count Basie, Wild Bill Davis and others, Smith's virtuoso improvisation technique on the Hammond helped to popularize the electric organ as a jazz and blues instrument.[4] The B3 and companion Leslie speaker produce a distinctive sound, including percussive "clicks" with each key stroke. The drawbar setting most commonly associated with Smith is to pull out the first three drawbars on the "B" preset on the top manual of the organ, with added harmonic percussion on the 3rd harmonic. This tone has been emulated by many jazz organists since Smith. Smith's style on fast tempo pieces combined bluesy "licks" with bebop-based single note runs. For ballads, he played walking bass lines on the bass pedals.[4] For uptempo tunes, he would play the bass line on the lower manual and use the pedals for emphasis on the attack of certain notes, which helped to emulate the attack and sound of a string bass.
Smith influenced a constellation of jazz organists, including Jimmy McGriff, Brother Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Joey DeFrancesco, Tony Monaco and Larry Goldings, as well as rock keyboardists such as Jon Lord, Brian Auger and Keith Emerson. Emerson would later recount a story where Smith grabbed Emerson's "meat and two veg" as a humorous greeting.[12] Later, Smith influenced bands such as Medeski, Martin & Wood and the Beastie Boys, who sampled the bassline from "Root Down (and Get It)" from Root Down—and saluted Smith in the lyrics—for their own hit "Root Down". Often called the father of acid jazz, Smith lived to see that movement come to reflect his organ style. In the 1990s, Smith went to Nashville, taking a break from his ongoing gigs at his Sacramento restaurant which he owned and, in Music City, Nashville, he produced, with the help of a webmaster, Dot Com Blues, his last Verve album. In 1999, Smith guested on two tracks of a live album, Incredible! (the hit from the 1960s) with his protégé, Joey DeFrancesco, a then 28-year-old organist. Smith and DeFrancesco's collaborative album Legacy was released in 2005 shortly after Smith's death.[13]
Discography
As leader
- A New Sound... A New Star... Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Volume 1 (Blue Note, 1956)
- A New Sound A New Star: Jimmy Smith at the Organ Volume 2 (Blue Note, 1956) aka The Champ
- The Incredible Jimmy Smith at the Organ (Blue Note, 1956) aka At The Organ, Volume 3
- At Club Baby Grand, Volume One (Blue Note, 1956)
- At Club Baby Grand, Volume Two (Blue Note, 1956)
- Jimmy Smith At The Organ, Volume 1 (Blue Note, 1957)
- Jimmy Smith At The Organ, Volume 2 (Blue Note, 1957)
- The Sounds of Jimmy Smith (Blue Note, 1957)
- A Date with Jimmy Smith Volume One (Blue Note, 1957)
- A Date with Jimmy Smith Volume Two (Blue Note, 1957)
- Plays Pretty Just for You (Blue Note, 1957)
- House Party (Blue Note, 1958)
- Groovin' at Smalls' Paradise, Volume One (Blue Note, 1958)
- Groovin' at Smalls' Paradise, Volume Two (Blue Note, 1958)
- The Sermon! (Blue Note, 1959)
- Crazy! Baby (Blue Note, 1960)
- Home Cookin' (Blue Note, 1961)
- Midnight Special (Blue Note, 1961)
- Plays Fats Waller (Blue Note, 1962)
- Bashin': The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith (Verve, 1962)
- Back at the Chicken Shack (Blue Note, 1963)
- Blue Bash! (Verve, 1963)
- Hobo Flats (Verve, 1963)
- Rockin' the Boat (Blue Note, 1963)
- Any Number Can Win (Verve, 1963)
- Christmas '64 (Verve, 1964)
- The Cat (Verve, 1964)
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Verve, 1964)
- Prayer Meetin' (Blue Note, 1964)
- La Metamorphose Des Cloportes (Verve, 1965)
- Live in Concert (Metro, 1965)
- Softly as a Summer Breeze (Blue Note, 1965)
- Organ Grinder Swing (Verve, 1965)
- Monster (Verve, 1965)
- Got My Mojo Workin' (Verve, 1965)
- Live at the Village Gate (Metro, 1965)
- Bucket (Blue Note, 1966)
- Swings Along with Stranger in Paradise (Pickwick, 1966) early recordings
- Hoochie Coochie Man (Verve, 1966)
- Peter & the Wolf (Verve, 1966)
- Jimmy & Wes: The Dynamic Duo (Verve, 1966) with Wes Montgomery
- I'm Movin' On (Blue Note, 1967)
- Respect (Verve, 1967)
- In Hamburg Live! (Metro, 1967)
- Open House (Blue Note, 1968)
- Stay Loose (Verve, 1968)
- Plain Talk (Blue Note, 1968)
- Livin' It Up! (Verve, 1968)
- The Fantastic Jimmy Smith (Upfront, 1969) early recordings
- The Boss (Verve, 1969)
- Groove Drops (Verve, 1969)
- Further Adventures of Jimmy and Wes (Verve, 1969) with Wes Montgomery
- The Other Side of Jimmy Smith (MGM, 1970)
- I'm Goin' Git Myself Together (Verve, 1971)
- In a Plain Brown Wrapper (Verve, 1971)
- Root Down (Verve, 1972)
- Bluesmith (Verve, 1972)
- Newport In New York '72 (The Jimmy Smith Jam, Vol 5) (Cobblestone, 1972)[14]
- Portuguese Soul (Verve, 1973)
- The Best of Jimmy Smith (Verve, 1973)
- Paid in Full (Mojo, 1974)
- Black Smith (Pride, 1974)
- Live In Israel (Isradisc, 1974) Israel only release
- 75 (Mojo, 1975)
- Sit on It (Mercury, 1977)
- It's Necessary (Mercury, 1977)
- Unfinished Business (Mercury, 1978)
- Jimmy Smith Plays For The People (featuring Holly Maxwell) (Polydor, 1979) [15] S. Africa only release
- Confirmation (Blue Note, 1979)
- Cool Blues (Blue Note, 1980)
- The Cat Strikes Again (Delta, 1981)
- On the Sunny Side (Blue Note, 1981)
- Second Coming (Mojo, 1981)
- Off the Top (Elektra Musician, 1982)
- Keep On Comin (Elektra Musician, 1983)
- Special Guests (Blue Note, 1984)
- Go for Whatcha Know (Blue Note, 1985)
- Jimmy Smith Trio + LD (Blue Note, 1985)
- Prime Time (Milestone, 1989)
- Fourmost (Milestone, 1991)
- Sum Serious Blues (Milestone, 1993)
- The Master (Blue Note, 1994)
- The Master II (Blue Note, 1994)
- Damn! (Verve, 1995)
- Angel Eyes: Ballads & Slow Jams (Verve, 1996)
- All the Way Live (Milestone, 1996)
- Cherokee (Blue Note, 1996)
- Lonesome Road (Blue Note, 1996)
- Standards (Blue Note, 1998)
- Six Views of the Blues (Blue Note, 1999)
- Dot Com Blues (Blue Thumb, 2000)
- Fourmost Return (Milestone, 2001)
- Black Cat (Castle Pie, 2002)
- Straight Life (Blue Note, 2007)
As sideman
- Beastie Boys, Ill Communication (Capitol, 1994)
- George Benson, George Benson (Verve, 1987)
- Jean-Michel Bernard, Cash (Naive, 2008)
- Dee Dee Bridgewater, Love and Peace: A Tribute to Horace Silver (Verve, 1995)
- Kenny Burrell, Ellington Is Forever (Fantasy, 1975)
- King Curtis, Get Ready (ATCO, 1970)
- King Curtis, Everybody's Talkin (ATCO, 1972)
- Joey DeFrancesco, Incredible! (Concord Jazz, 2000)
- Joey DeFrancesco with Jimmy Smith, Legacy (Concord Jazz, 2005)
- Cornell Dupree, Shadow Dancing (Versatile, 1978)
- Stu Gardner, The Italian Heist (Super Disco Edits 2019)
- Jon Hendricks, Love (Muse, 1982)
- James Ingram, It's Your Night (Qwest, 1983)
- Michael Jackson, Bad ((BS, 1987))
- Quincy Jones, Smackwater Jack (A&M, 1971)
- Quincy Jones & Bill Cosby, The Original Jam Sessions 1969 (Concord, 2004)
- Toshihiko Kankawa with Jimmy Smith, Quarter Run (Paddle Wheel, 1984)
- Robbie Krieger, Robbie Krieger & Friends (Blue Note, 1977)
- Yoshiaki Miyanoue with Special Guest Jimmy Smith , Touch Of Love (Vap, 1981)
- Frank Sinatra, L.A. Is My Lady (Qwest/WB, 1984)
- Candi Staton, Stand Up and Be a Witness (Beracah 1989)
- Stanley Turrentine, Straight Ahead (Blue Note, 1984)
- Lenny White, Venusian Summer (Nemeror, 1975)
- Various, Newport In New York '72 (The Jam Sessions, Vol. 4) (Cobblestone, 1972)[16]
- Various, One Night With Blue Note Volume 3 (Blue Note, 1985)[17]
References
- Holley, Joe (February 11, 2005). "Jazz Musician Jimmy Smith, Master Organist, Dies at 76". The Washington Post.
- Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19 ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 509. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
- Allmusic biography
- Colin Larkin, ed. (1997). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Concise ed.). Virgin Books. pp. 1102/3. ISBN 1-85227-745-9.
- John Fordham (June 2, 2010). "50 great moments in jazz: Jimmy Smith and the Hammond organ". Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 18 April 2011.
- Dicaire, David (2006). Jazz musicians, 1945 to the present. McFarland. pp. 110–13. ISBN 0-7864-2097-9.
- Leonard Feather; Ira Gitler (2007). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press US. p. 611. ISBN 0-19-532000-X.
- https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/feb/11/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries
- "Jimmy Smith Plays for the People: Rare South African - only LP with program". collectorsfrenzy.com. 2013 CollectorsFrenzy. February 19, 2012. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 7 August 2013.
- "Jimmy Smith Biography". Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
- John Murph (9 February 2005). "Jazz pioneer Jimmy Smith dies". NBC News. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
- Emerson, Keith (October 30, 2010). "Rick Wakeman & Keith Emerson Talk 10-30-2010". YouTube. Retrieved June 27, 2020.
- Ollie Bivens (21 June 2005). "Joey DeFrancesco with Jimmy Smith: Legacy (2005)". All About Jazz. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
- https://www.discogs.com/Various-Newport-In-New-York-72-The-Jimmy-Smith-Jam-Vol-5/release/2208167
- https://www.discogs.com/Jimmy-Smith-Trio-Jimmy-Smith-Plays-For-The-People-Featuring-Holly-Maxwell/release/12628932
- https://www.discogs.com/Various-Newport-In-New-York-72-The-Complete-Six-Record-Set-Vols-1-6/release/12144149
- https://www.discogs.com/Various-One-Night-With-Blue-Note-Volume-3/master/330121