Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 34

Record label: Blue Note

Produced: Alfred Lion

Recorded: Van Gelder’s Recording Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; April 25, 1960

Released: summer 1961

Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)

Personnel: Jimmy Smith (o); Stanley Turrentine (ts); Kenny Burrell (g); Donald Bailey (d)

Track listing: Back At The Chicken Shack; When I Grow Too Old To Dream; Minor Chant; Messy Bessie

Running time: 38.04

Current CD: Blue Note CDP7464022 adds: On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Further listening: The Cat (1964) – more swinging organ tunes but this time arranged and conducted by Lalo Schifrin; Monster (1965) – Oliver Nelson big band arrangements and organ-led takes on classic theme tunes

Further reading: www.bluenote.com; www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist.aspx?aid=2740

Download: HMV Digital; iTunes

By 1960, Jimmy Smith had already recorded a phenomenal 19 albums for Blue Note. That same year he recorded four more – two of them (Midnight Special and Back At The Chicken Shack) from the same session at Van Gelder’s Recording Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Produced by Alfred Lion, the latter set the precedent for every Hammond organ-led record since with its instantly infectious, gutsy groove featuring Smith’s trademark walking basslines and right hand solos. (Mention should also be made of the striking sleeve by Francis Wolff: ‘Let’s get some pictures with “grease”,’ said Smith – hence the shot of him on a friend’s farm, in natty attire, with dog Elsie and a rooster.)

A pianist from the age of nine, Smith gigged in jazz and R&B groups around his home in western Pennsylvania. Then came the switch to organ. ‘I saw Wild Bill [Davis] in 1953 and took up the Hammond on the spot. I taught myself. I kept it in a shed so no one knew I couldn’t play it. I battled with that beast every single day.’ Two years later Smith played his first gig with the Hammond at Jimmy’s Jazz Club in The Village, New York. ‘It was a challenge. Nobody had thought about taking the Hammond into jazz and those jazz fans didn’t like it, no way. But I went nuts. I went crazy.’

As for Back At The Chicken Shack: ‘I just went in there and played my guts out. There was a lot of respect going down between those guys in the studio. Stanley [Turrentine] and Kenny [Burrell] were downright funky. Donald [Bailey] kept the rhythm ticking over.’ Recorded on 2-track analogue tape, Smith composed two of the four tracks – Messy Bessie, a funky blues inspired by Charlie Parker’s Confirmation, and the title track, an effortlessly cool and sassy down-home number. The Romberg/Hammerstein standard When I Grow Too Old To Dream spotlights Turrentine’s almost vocal sax style. Turrentine’s own Minor Chant, written for his Look Out! album, is 32 bars and seven-and-a-half minutes of minor key sauntering with Stanley wailing centre stage.

The following year Smith recorded another two records for Blue Note. Then in 1962 he signed to Verve, successfully experimenting with a full big band sound and earning his nickname, The Cat.