BLP 1514

Jimmy Smith - A New Sound, A New Star

Released - April 1956

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ, March 27, 1956
Jimmy Smith, organ; Thornel Schwartz, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.2 Turquoise
tk.3 Moonlight In Vermont
tk.7 Ready 'N' Able
tk.8 Deep Purple
tk.12 The Champ
tk.13 Bayou
tk.16 Bubbis

Session Photos

March 27, 1956

Photos: Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images / 
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
The Champ	Dizzy Gillespie	27/03/1956
Bayou	Jimmy Smith	27/03/1956
Deep Purple	Peter DeRose, Mitchell Parish	27/03/1956
Side Two
Moonlight in Vermont	John Blackburn, Karl Suessdorf	27/03/1956
Ready 'n Able	Jimmy Smith	27/03/1956
Turquoise	Jimmy Smith	27/03/1956
Bubbis	Jimmy Smith	27/03/1956

Credits

Cover Photo:	FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design:	REID K. MILES
Engineer:	RUDY VAN GELDER
Producer:	ALFRED LION
Liner Notes:	BABS GONZALES

Liner Notes

It isn't very often that a musician possessing that rare quality of creative genius coupled with "volcanic fire" makes an appearance on the musical scene. In my entire career in the music field I had only felt that "fire" when listening to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Webster, Charlie Christian and Bud Powell.

Jimmy Smith has definitely joined this immortal group which was and still is vital to the survival of Modern Jazz. His dexterity on the organ is comparable to Bud Powell's on the piano and he possesses the only "Oklahoma funkish" style of comping on the Blues since Charlie Christian. He is probably the first organist who plays the instrument with a modern conception and he has developed a sound all his own. The modern musicians are definitely in Jimmy's corner. When he played recently at Smalls' Paradise, the back-room was crowded nightly with "cats" to dig the "Smith" sounds. In everything he touches his musical genius makes itself felt. It doesn't matter if he plays a funky Blues, a hard-swinging number or a slow ballad.

Born in Norristown, Pa., Jimmy studied the piano under his father, a piano teacher. He "gigged" around Norristown and Western Pennsylvania from 1941 to 1951, finally settling in Philly. There he met all the touring "great cats" and decided he'd need more musical schooling. For two years he attended Halsey Music School majoring in Harmony and Theory along with a guy named Clifford Brown.

After completing his schooling he began playing "gigs" again, and when one night in 1953 he heard Wild Bill Davis, he decided then and there that the organ was for him. For the next year he gigged on piano by night and practiced the organ by day.

Early in 1954 he joined the Don Gardner Quartet for a tour of the Rhythm and Blues circuit, but the constant demand for commercialism was destroying his creativeness. So, in 1955 he left the group to go out again as a single.

Last summer he opened at a club in Atlantic City. He didn't need any "tubs" because all the drummers there were lined up nightly waiting for a chance to play with him. Within three days the news reached me about this "insane" organist and I drove down to "dig" for myself.

What I heard was a "cat" playing forty choruses of Georgia Brown in pure "Nashua" tempo and never repeating. I heard "futuristic stratospheric" sounds that were never before explored on the organ. I was supposed to see a host of "cats" that night, but all I did was "lay dead" because every cat in town made it by Jimmy's "gig" during the night.

As you are digging the album, Jimmy will already have two New York engagements under his belt: one at Smalls' Uptown and one at Cafe Bohemia, the progressive spot in the Village.

On these LP's Jimmy is ably assisted on guitar by Thornel Schwartz, a real swinging cat. They are sound twins on the bandstand and are always singing new arrangements in the car while traveling. Bay Perry, brother of the late Ray Perry of sax fame, was used on A New Sound... A New Star... Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Vol. 1, while Donald Bailey, Jimmy's regular drummer, supplies the rhythm On A New Sound, a New Star: Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Vol. 2. I am very proud to have the opportunity to write these notes on such a great artist, who — like so many others before him — makes his debut on Blue Note. VOILA!