Jimmy Smith - Jimmy Smith at Club Baby Grand, Vol. 1 (RVG Edition)
ARTIST.....: Jimmy Smith
TITLE......: Jimmy Smith at Club Baby Grand, Vol. 1 (RVG Edition)
LABEL......: Bluenote Records
URL........: http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7623489
RIP DATE...: Mar-21-2008
STORE DATE.: Mar-11-2008
GENRE......: Jazz
QUALITY....: VBR / 44.1Hz / Joint-Stereo
SIZE.......: 36,4 MB
Track Listing:
01 - Introduction By Mitch Thomas 00:56
02 - Sweet Georgia Brown 09:35
03 - Where Or When 09:18
04 - The Preacher 11:46
05 - Rosetta 10:07
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41:42 min
Release Notes:
Playing piano-style single-note lines on his Hammond B-3 organ,
Jimmy Smith revolutionized the use of the instrument in a jazz
combo setting in the mid-'50s and early '60s, and he was still the
next big thing on the block when he recorded two LP volumes live
over the course of two afternoon sets and three evening sets on
August 4, 1956, at Club Baby Grand in Wilmington, DE. Smith had
already tracked three successful studio LPs for Blue Note Records
at sessions held earlier in the year in February, March, and June,
and the time seemed right to present him in a concert setting
where the full whirlwind force of his speedy playing could be best
appreciated. Working with guitarist Thornel Schwartz and his
longtime drummer Donald Bailey (who worked with Smith throughout
his Blue Note years), Smith is 90 percent of the show here,
bursting out with amazing rapid runs on the B-3, filling the air
from one end of the room to the other as only he could. This first
volume is drawn from the three evening sets, opening with what was
actually the last selection of the night, a zippy, headlong
version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" and highlighted by a nearly 12-
minute version of Horace Silver's "The Preacher," a piece Smith
has already made his own. It's all Jimmy Smith in full flight,
bubbling over with cascading notes and breathless detours, and if
his studio work is generally more structured and considered (but
only a little more so), this set shows him in what was his natural
habitat, astounding an audience in a small club. Bailey keeps up
with things and Schwartz gets a word in now and then, but this is
Smith's show all the way.