3-85192-2

Jimmy Smith - Straight Life

Released - 2007

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, June 22, 1961
Jimmy Smith, organ; Quentin Warren, guitar; Donald Bailey, drums.

tk.3 Here's To My Lady
tk.7 Straight Life
tk.9 Stuffy
tk.10 Minor Fare
tk.12 Minor Fare (alternate take)
tk.14 Star Dust
tk.15 Jimmy's Blues
tk.16 Swanee
tk.17 Sweet Sue, Just You
tk.18 Yes Sir, That's My Baby

Track Listing

Title	Author	Recording Date
Straight Life	Jimmy Smith	June 22 1961
Stuffy	Coleman Hawkins	June 22 1961
Star Dust	H. Carmichael-M. Parish	June 22 1961
Sweet Sue, Just You	V. Young-W. J. Harris	June 22 1961
Minor Fare	Jimmy Smith	June 22 1961
Swanee	G. Gershwin-I. Caesar	June 22 1961
Jimmy's Blues	Jimmy Smith	June 22 1961
Yes Sir, That's My Baby	G. Kahn-W. Donaldson	June 22 1961
Here's To My Lady	J. Mercer-R. Bloom	June 22 1961
Minor Fare (Alt Tk)	Jimmy Smith	June 22 1961

Liner Notes

Jimmy Smith began his Blue Note association with a date done on February 18, 1956. He completed his contractual obligations to Blue Note With four albums (I'm Movin' On, Bucket, Rockin' the Boat, and Prayer Meetin') done in a nine-day period in January and February 1963. While he recorded for the label again many years later, it is this first Blue Note period that is generally considered to contain his greatest work.

His recording for the label was in distinctly settings, either: l) an guitar & drums trio — his working instrumentation, or 2) sessions involving a guest horn player (Percy France, Lou Donaldson, or Stanley Turrentine), or 3) jam sessions with several horns. There were no big band albums for Blue Note.

Roughly half the output was trio and Straight Life is the last trio album to see release. It is the only Jimmy Smith recording from 1961 and, with its 1962 companion Jimmy Smith plays Fats Waller, the only Jimmy Smith Blue Note recording between the spring of 1960 and the final four recordings for the label. This particular trio With Quentin Warren and Donald Bailey first appeared on Crazy Baby, the best-selling of all the Jimmy Smith trio albums, in 1960.

Organ groups operated well beneath the radar of jazz critics during the 1950s & '60s. So while Quentin Warren was a part of the Jimmy Smith trio for six or seven years, there is no biographical entry on him in any edition of The Encyclopedia Of Jazz. It is known that he came from Washington D. C. and that he returned there upon leaving Jimmy Smith. Warren followed Thornel Schwartz and Eddie McFadden and, like his predecessors, is a master of the comp: the fills that aid the rhythmic impetus of the soloist.

Donald Bailey (b. 3/26/34) is a Philadelphian who joined the Jimmy Smith Trio shortly after its formation. Bailey was an important part of what made Jimmy Smith so successful and he played on all the Jimmy Smith Blue Note albums except the first one (and whenever Art Blakey was part of a jam session group). Bailey's playing is propulsive without dominating — a perfect approach for Jimmy Smith. He continued to be part of the Jimmy Smith group and recorded with him as late as 1968. By that time he had moved to Los Angeles where he worked with Jack Wilson and Gene Harris, among many others. He has continued to play in Los Angeles where he remains one of the major players in town.

There was no R&B (or Soul) Album chart in Billboard until 1965, and at the time of this recording Jimmy Smith had yet to attain the astonishing success that would be his in the next Few years. But Midnight Special was released and was selling at a pace greater than anything Blue Note had experienced in the past. In March 1962, Jimmy Smith had been "loaned" to Verve to make his Bashin' album. Once Jimmy Smith had experienced the promotional effort and publicity push of a big label, there was no turning back. In April of 1962, Midnight Special hit the Billboard Pop Album chart and Bashin' would follow in July, ultimately making the ten. From that point forward, the emphasis would on recording hits. And Jimmy Smith delivered. Jimmy Smith would put eighteen albums on either the Pop or Album charts in the next six years. He would become the best-selling jazz artist of the 1960s. Nobody else was close.

Straight Life comes from a different time. It comes before the huge success, the big hits, and the national celebrity. It involves Jimmy Smith making a trio record, with his guys, playing some unlikely tunes, in his own special way. It was more than forty-five years ago and it is good to have it, finally.

— BOB PORTER, WBGO