Ethel Smith Organ Solos

Most of organist Jimmy Smith's recordings for Verve during the mid- to late '60s were with big bands, making this trio outing with guitarist Kenny Burrell and drummer Grady Tate a special treat. This outing is a throwback to Smith's Blue Note sets (which had concluded two years earlier) and gives the organist the opportunity to stretch out on three blues and three standards. This release shows that, even with all of his commercial success during the period, Smith was always a masterful jazz player.

Few female jazz singers were on Ethel Waters' level during this period - just Bessie Smith and Annette Hanshaw, and all three were quite different from each other. Waters has rarely sounded better than on the four numbers in which she is backed rather forcefully by pianist James P. Johnson (particularly "Guess Who's in Town" and "Do What You Did Last Night"), but she is also in fine form on the other small-group sides. "I'm Coming Virginia," "Home," "Take Your Black Bottom Outside," "Someday Sweetheart," and "Am I Blue" (which she introduced) are among the many gems on this highly recommended entry in Classics' chronological series.

Lonnie Smith - Drives (1970) {2009 Japan 24-bit Remaster New Note Classics Series TOCJ-6756}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 233 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 85 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 214 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24-bit remaster
© 1970, 2009 EMI Music Japan / Blue Note | TOCJ-6756
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Funk / Organ

Lonnie Smith had the raw skills, imagination, and versatility to play burning originals, bluesy covers of R&B and pop, or skillful adaptations of conventional jazz pieces and show tunes. Why he never established himself as a consistent performer remains a mystery, but this 1970 reissue shows why he excited so many people during his rise. Smith's solos on "Spinning Wheel" and his own composition, "Psychedelic PI," are fleet and furious, boosting the songs from interesting to arresting. He's also impressive on "Seven Steps to Heaven," while the array of phrases, rhythms, and voicings on "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" demonstrate a mastery of the organ's pedals and keys rivaling that of the instrument's king, Jimmy Smith.

When Jimmy Smith exploded onto the jazz scene in 1956, he changed everything about the way the organ was used and perceived in jazz. His first two years of recording were mind-bogglingly prolific, producing 13 albums. Three marathon jam sessions during this period produced some of his finest early work, including The Sermon! Smith displays both a youthful fire and a musical wisdom beyond his years throughout the album. Whether blazing through hard bop tunes like "Confirmation" and "Au Privave" (both Charlie Parker compositions) or gently caressing the ballad "Lover Man," Smith constantly proves himself the most inventive organist of the bop generation…

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 arguably his best albums for Blue Note during this period were the ones he did with tenor sax player Stanley Turrentine. Recorded on February 8, 1963, at Van Gelder Studio in New Jersey, and featuring Quentin Warren on guitar and Donald Bailey on drums in addition to Smith and Turrentine, Prayer Meetin' is a delight from start to finish. Forming a perfect closure to Smith's trio of albums with Turrentine (Midnight Special and Back at the Chicken Shack were both released in 1960), Prayer Meetin' was the last of four albums Smith recorded in a week to finish off his Blue Note contract before leaving for Verve…

Am I Blue? Offers a marvellous cross-section from the best of one of the finest of all jazz-styled vocalists, the pioneering Ethel Waters (1896-1977). Starting out as a blues/vaudeville singer (known as “Sweet Mama Stringbean”), the black American singer, entertainer, and later accomplished actress on stage and screen, became one of the era’s most accomplished and sensitive interpreters of popular songs…

This is the one Willie "the Lion" Smith CD to get. The bulk of the release features Smith on 14 piano solos from January 10, 1939, performing six standards and eight of his finest compositions. Although Smith (with his derby hat and cigar) could look quite tough, he was actually a sensitive player whose chord structures were very original and impressionistic. On such numbers as "Echoes of Spring" (his most famous work), "Passionette," "Rippling Waters," and "Morning Air," Smith was at his most expressive. In addition, this CD has a couple of collaborations with fellow pianists Joe Bushkin and Jess Stacy and a four-song 1940 swing/Dixieland 1940 session with an octet featuring trumpeter Sidney DeParis. Because of the classic piano solos, this memorable set is quite essential.

This sixth volume in the Classics Willie "The Lion" Smith chronology is packed with exceptionally fine music, beginning with seven Commodore piano solos recorded near the end of 1950. The Lion is in excellent form here - his thunderously percussive rendition of Cole Porter's "Just One of Those Things" could serve as a sort of primal preface to Cecil Taylor's 1959 reconstitution of Porter's "Get Out of Town." The Lion's Blue Circle session of August 15, 1953, features a robust little band with a front line of trumpeter Henry Goodwin, trombonist Jimmy Archey, and reedman Cecil Scott. Myra Johnson, Fats Waller's feisty touring vocalist during the late '30s and early '40s, chips in with a rowdy reading of "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Stop It, Joe," a James P. Johnson composition erroneously credited here to Willie "The Lion" Smith…