Jimmy Smith - Cool Blues
Released - 1980
Recording and Session Information
"Smalls Paradise", Harlem, NY, 1st set, April 7, 1958
Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Tina Brooks, tenor sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Eddie McFadden, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.
tk.5 Cool Blues
"Smalls Paradise", Harlem, NY, 3rd set, April 7, 1958
Lou Donaldson, alto sax; Tina Brooks, tenor sax; Jimmy Smith, organ; Eddie McFadden, guitar; Art Blakey, drums.
tk.11 A Night In Tunisia
tk.12 Dark Eyes
tk.13 Groovin' At Small's
Session Photos
Photos: © Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/
Track Listing
| Side One | ||
| Title | Author | Recording Date |
| Groovin' At Small's | Babs Gonzales | April 7 1958 |
| Dark Eyes | Traditional - Arr. Smith | April 7 1958 |
| Side Two | ||
| Cool Blues | Charlie Parker | April 7 1958 |
| A Night In Tunisia | Dizzy Gillespie | April 7 1958 |
Liner Notes
Jimmy Smith‘s story is an unusual one because he single-handedly introduced an instrument into the modern jazz mainstream and created a sound and a style to go with it. What is most unusual is that he did not even approach the instrument until he was 28 years old, and he did not play a gig under his own leadership or record an album of his own until he was 29.
Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on December 8, 1926, Jimmy studied piano from his father and later attended the Orenstein School of Music in Philadelphia for three years, studying piano, bass, harmony and theory. A succession of R & B gigs followed until 1955 when Smith began considering the possibilities of the electric organ, having been inspired by the work of Wild Bill Davis.
He made a deal with a Philadelphia organ dealer to play on one of their organs at one dollar an hour until he could afford to buy his own. When he did buy his own instrument, he housed it in a warehouse near his residence and worked out conscientiously everyday, systematically teaching himself the instrument's capabilities and possibilities.
After a year of sweat, he emerged with a style all his own and a facility that could be described as nothing less than complete virtuousity. He formed his first trio with guitarist Thornel Schwartz and drummer Flay Perry. Word of this phenomenon came up to New York via musicians such as pianist Freddie Redd who happened to catch Smith while travelling through Philly. A few initial gigs in New York, uptown at Small’s Paradise and downtown at Cafe Bohemia, and this man playing organ was literally the talk of the town. Alfred Lion of Blue Note was quick to check him out and even quicker to sign him. And from his first sessions, which included The Preacher and The Champ, Jimmy Smith’s records were commercial and artistic hits.
Smith recorded for Blue Note from February, 1956 to February, 1963. And the label put him in a variety of settings during those seven years. He recorded with his working trio, with singers Babs Gonsalves and Bill Henderson, with rhythm section guests Kenny Burrell, Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones, in quartet setting with Lou Donaldson or Stanley Turrentine and with all star sextets that included Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Tina Brooks, Hank Mobley, Donald Byrd, Blue Mitchell, Jackie McLean, Ike Quebec and many others.
He seemed to shine most on live recordings and dates with an assemblage of challenging hornmen. In this album, we have both. Small’s Paradise, the legendary Harlem club at 135 Street and 7th Avenue, has contributed to the history of jazz since the twenties. It has special significance to Smith and his relationship with Blue Note. The late Frank Wolff, Alfred Lion’s partner in Blue Note, wrote, “I first heard Jimmy at Small’s Paradise in January of 1956. it was his first gig in New York - one week. He was a stunning sight. A man in convulsions, face contorted, crouched over in apparent agony, the fingers flying, his foot dancing over the pedals. The air was filled with waves of sound that I had never heard before. The noise was shattering. A few people sat around, puzzled, but impressed. He came off the stand, smiling, the sweat dripping all over him. “So what do you think?" “Yeah,” I said. That’s all I could say. Alfred Lion had already made up his mind.
He had revamped the jazz organ and come up with a new sound. The sound has now been adopted by almost all jazz organists, but his style remains his own. Right from the start of his recording career, he was in full command of this very complex and demanding machine, the Hammond organ. Apart from his incredible technique, he had fire, feeling, beat, humor - all adding up to a highly personal style. Everything was there, everything was right when he did The Champ and through the years so many other masterpieces. Jimmy Smith is a great artist - and a beautiful guy."
After some twenty months of prolific recording for Blue Note and some eleven albums on the market, Smith and his regular trio of Eddie McFadden on guitar and Donald Bailey on drums and producer Alfred Lion and engineer Rudy Van Gelder moved into Small's Paradise for the night of November 15, 1957 and recorded enough material for three albums, although only two were issued. They were Groovin' At Small's Paradise, volumes 1 8. 2 (BLP 1585/1586).
Again on April 7, 1958, Smith's trio was back at Small's with Blue Note taping. Lou Donaldson, already a frequent fourth for Smith on certain gigs and record dates, was added for the evening. And special guests Art Blakey and Tina Brooks insured a very special night. The material from this session was never issued. The reason was probably not the music, which was excellent, but the fact that it was recorded only in mono at a time when stereo was growing rapidly.
The regular quartet played the first two sets, but the first set ended with Charlie Parker’s Cool Blues with Tina Brooks added to the band. The third set was comprised of three tunes, A Night In Tunisia, Dark Eyes and Babs Gonzales’ Groovin' At Small's with Art Blakey replacing Bailey.
Blakey, who had already guested on several Smith dates by this time, was assurance of instant fire and inspiration. And he works his usual magic here, controlling the dynamics and the spirit of the music from the drums, giving it life and power and gut beauty.
Tina Brooks, the late tenor saxophonist, was a terribly underrated and very brilliant improviser. The subtlety of his tone and intricacy of his ideas. Six weeks prior to this date, he recorded with Smith on a marathon sextet jam session that produced The Sermon, House Party and Confirmation. Almost his entire legacy would be documented by Blue Note. He played on Kenny Burrell’s Blue Lights and Five Spot albums, on Freddie Hubbard’s first record, two Freddie Redd dates, a Jackie McLean sextet session and on four album dates that he led, only one of which was issued in his lifetime. By the end of the sixties, Brooks had stopped playing out of general despair, and by the end of 1974, he had died of general dissipation. His death seems to us as tragic as his life must have seemed to him.
But this night at Small’s was one of relaxed cooking, a get together of peers who speak the same language and speak it better than most. The audience was small and knowing, and the atmosphere was informal on this Monday night. Babs Gonzales, who functioned as emcee that night, or Alfred Lion might consult the band between tunes. And if a tune got off to a wrong start, they’d stop and start again. But once they were rolling, they were unstoppable. And the intimacy of the evening contributed to the spontaneity.
On Cool Blues, you can hear Lou signalling Jimmy that he had played his last chorus and that the organist should take over by playing an insistent quote from Now’s The Time as if to say, “wake up, take it!” And on A Night In Tunisia, Blakey turns the beat around at one point, and Lou hesitates in his confusion. But Smith stampedes on through until the groove is reestablished and Donaldson continues his flight. These moments of human imperfection add to the feeling of being in on something at the point of creation. That is part of the magic of a jam session in capable hands.
Jimmy Smith with guests Art Blakey, Lou Donaldson and Tina Brooks playing live at Small’s Paradise with Rudy Van Gelder's tape machines running: an unbeatable chemistry and a night in which we can all share in perpetuity.
by Michael Cuscuna
RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes
JIMMY SMITH COOL BLUES
This is the first volume in the Rudy Van Gelder series representing what have been called the "lost" Blue Note sessions. Like a number of the label's projects from the '50s and '60s, it remained unreleased for decades until Michael Cuscuna and the late Charlie Lourie found outlets for belated releases on Blue Note collectors' series in various countries, under their own Mosaic imprint, and as part of the second-generation resurgence of the label that began in 1985. In terms of overall spirit and the glorious pleasure it conveys, no finer choice could have been made from among this often fascinating body of music. Cool Blues beautifully complements other, more familiar Smith sessions of the period, specifically the two studio jam collections House Party and The Sermon and the volumes by Smith's working trio of McFadden and Bailey that were taped at the same legendary Harlem location five months earlier. The first four tracks here initially appeared on a 1980 LP, and the full program was included on the original 1990 CD reissue.
The contribution of Tina Brooks alone makes the collection memorable. Brooks is one of jazz's might-have-beens; he lived a starkly attenuated life, born in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1932, dead of what has been described as general dissipation in 1974, unrecognized and basically undocumented through most of his career as a tenor saxophonist. Almost all of what we now know of Brooks is contained on Blue Note sessions recorded between 1958 and 1961, and a large portion of that material (including all but one of his own dates as a leader) did not surface in his lifetime. Among the sessions that did appear early on, before his own 1960 LP True Blue, were Brooks's label debut at the second House Party/Sermon session from February 1958 and Kenny Burrell's live On View At The Five Spot Cafe from August 1959 (the latter also featuring Art Blakey as special guest). Clearly, Brooks was comfortable working in an organ combo and communicated with quiet fervor in front of a live audience. These rare extended examples of his tenor sax work are among the best of his sadly abbreviated discography.
Blakey and Lou Donaldson are far more familiar figures, but their presence resonates as well. They were veterans of a couple of important Smith projects, not to mention the historic 1954 Birdland recordings under Blakey's leadership that sent Van Gelder on location for Blue Note in the first of the label's numerous in-person efforts. Coincidentally, Blakey's Birdland visit also produced versions of "Once In A While" (with Clifford Brown as the featured soloist on that earlier occasion) and "A Night In Tunisia." At Small's, Donaldson took charge on "Once" and the set's other ballad, "What's New?," and also soared at the brisker tempos of the other tracks. His fluency has rarely been on better display than during his "Cool Blues" solo, where Bailey is the drummer and sets a groove more self-effacing yet no less effective than Blakey's on the surrounding performances.
As demonstrative as the music gets, and as technically dazzling as Smith's solos become at points, the organist is a true team player throughout, giving everyone else plenty of room and ensuring that his guests feel comfortable in the process. Yet a point Michael Cuscuna makes in the original liner notes bears repeating. Smith had only been playing the Hammond B-3 organ professionally for three years, and his inventions, heard at their most torrential on "Dark Eyes" and the title track, are the sound of an innovator still immersing himself in the possibilities of his instrument. As far as he and others have taken the keyboard in subsequent decades, it can safely be said that no one has surpassed the audacious outpouring of these particular flights.
In addition to their monaural format and the abundance of other Smith albums from the period, the length of the tracks with Brooks and Blakey no doubt also contributed to keeping this material in the vaults for nearly a quarter-century. The compact disc format is more accommodating to such performances, and this CD reissue even includes a bit of newly-released commentary from Babs Gonzales, who besides holding the honor of having been Blue Note's first bebop artist (in '1947) was also Smith's manager when the organist made his initial splash in New York. Babs's expoobident presence was always part of the ambience on earlier issues, and his exhortations to the band sound fit right into the atmosphere of serious fun that prevails throughout.
— Bob Blumenthal, 2001
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