Customer Reviews

Groovin' at Smalls' Paradise

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This live performance was captured when Jimmy Smith was truly at the peak of his creative powers. Recorded on November 15, 1957 Smith is joined by his working group of Eddie McFadden on guitar, and Donald Bailey on drums. The playing is truly inspired by all. Smith gets to his absolute white hottest on the cuts "Walkin'", "The Champ", and "After Hours", the latter being a low down blues in which Smith really displays what would become trademarks: lightning right hand runs, as well as his patented trilling. There are some great ballads on the collection, notably "Laura" in which Jimmy stuns the listener with an incredibly lengthy classical tinged cadenza to bring the tune to a thrilling climax. Eddie McFadden is showcased on "Indiana", a tune which displays a talent truly underrated. Also notable is that this is the first album, to showcase a new stop setting on Jimmy's B-3, different than his more high pitched whistle like tone on his earlier works. The music here is simply incredible, and in beautiful 24 bit sound by Rudy Van Gelder. A classic album that in it's complete form is one of the best he ever cut. This was an incredibly active period for Jimmy, and coincedentally Jimmy's group went in to the studio 5 days later for another recording session

Jimmy Smith and company made jazz history the night of November 15, 1957. This freewheeling live set from the legendary Small's Paradise nightclub anticipates just about every twist and turn Hammond B-3 and indeed almost all other electronic keyboard playing would take up to the present day.

This classic recording represents Smith at his early best, his unique artistry arguably in its purest and most unfettered form. Suffice it to say that this is all beef and no tofu, with fierce and furious renditions of standards like "Indiana," flavorful blues workouts in "Walkin'" and "After Hours," and rich gospel-tinged treatments of "Laura" and "My Funny Valentine." Highlights also include Jimmy's quirky extended introductory vamps to many tunes. His bandmates are certainly no slouches either, with guitarist McFadden in particular contributing quicksilver licks steeped in bebop.

Groovin' at Small's Paradise is a non-stop rocket blast of a recording, guaranteed to energize you better than quaffing a dozen bottles of Jolt Cola. It's well worth the extra cash, too--you get the equivalent of 3 LPs worth of music, and the clarity of the remastering of these Van Gelder special editions is superb.

There are so few live recordings of Jimmy Smith and he truly shows off very well live... thing is, he shows off well in the studio, so you know live has got to be even better. This recording is a must have for anyone into Jimmy Smith and I might make it a first recommendation for anyone just being introduced to him. I have over 40 titles by him and this new release made me very happy.

I just got this CD set!!! It is a live club date recording by the Alfred Lion, and it's smokin'!!!! Nearly 16 minutes up-tempo blowing on the tune "Indiana" only!!! This is true vintage Jimmy Smith from 1957!!! Small's Paradise's in Harlem, and there is a wonderful historical, cultural background on the club by Leonard Feathers that's worth the cost of the CDs. The music, of course, is priceless!!! If you are fan of the Hammond B3, buy this CD set!

Jimmy Smith is one of those Musicians that you have to hit Rewind twice to Believe what you just heard first and then the 2nd time to feel the soul of his Organ again.his Playing is Incredible in the studio but Live it's Fantastic.Walkin' is tight as is Indiana&the Champ.The Music Never lets up&it's very Soulful.this is a Must.He is one of the Baddest Organ Players ever.also in General one of the Baddest Musicians ever.

The Cook/Morton Penguin Guide names this as Jimmy Smith's best album, on the strength of the long reading of "After Hours" in particular. They're right about that track--it's a tremendous performance--but they're wrong about the album. This early disc comes from a period where Smith was still playing essentially an amalgam of bebop & Erroll Garner, pushed to almost surreal extremes by his extraordinary cup-runneth-over style of improvising & the weird array of sounds he coaxed from the organ, from throbbing bel canto wails to machine-gun flak to glittering icicle brilliance. Most of the material here is popular standards of the day--"Body & Soul", "I Can't Give You Anything but Love", "Imagination", "My Funny Valentine", "Lover Man", "Indiana", "Laura", "Just Friends", "It's Only a Paper Moon"--& he takes them to the cleaners: "Laura" in particular is so wildly over the top that when I last spun this album, my wife thought that it was a put-on. (Nope.) I kind of perversely like the ballad tracks for their sheer excess--it's a good vulgar antidote to tasteful piano-trio versions--but the really good stuff here tends to be the bop-into-blues of "The Champ", "Walkin" & "Slightly Monkish", & of course the excellent "After Hours".

Eddie McFadden on guitar is no whiz but plays just fine, though he has a distressing tendency to sail along smoothly for several choruses & then at precisely the wrong moment (the climax of a tune, the final turnaround) hit some sour notes (e.g. the bum notes circa 5:30 on "Body & Soul"). Donald Bailey is on the other hand as consistently excellent as he is on so many Smith albums of this period. If you're attuned to this kind of lavish organ jazz then _Groovin' at Smalls' Paradise_ is very enjoyable; but if you tend to think of organs as noisy, overbearing monsters then it's definitely one to avoid.

This is Jimmy's best album, my all time favourite. This is the real deal: just organ, guitar & drums. And most tracks are 6 min and more, so you get a lot of LOUD organ by the man. To me the best track in this session is Laura, breathtaking. This album will make reevaluate the stature of jimmy as a soloist; he is right there with the best of his time: trane, ornette, sonny. A masterpiece! One of my all time favourite Blue Notes.

The first CD in this 2-cd set is quite rough to get through. Smith's tone is extra-gooey and lacks some of the muscularity and grit he would adopt on later releases, and the fact that the first CD mostly consists of slow ballads and sappy standards (really, isn't it time to retire "My Funny Valentine" and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," from the jazz songbook?) doesn't help at all, at all. Except for "Walkin'," there's really not much to recommend the first CD unless you really like hearing Jimmy Smith as an excessively plummy, occasionally semi-Monkish balladeer.

The second CD, on the other hand, is a different story. Jimmy hits the ground running with "Indiana," and never lets up. Guitarist Eddie McFadden has a lot to do with the pace and the verve of the second CD. He pushes Smith and spars with him, and as a result drummer Donald Bailey begins to get inspired. They start interacting, and it becomes jazz, as opposed to the first CD which is just Jimmy Smith noodling through some ballads, with the other two men sounding frankly bored or absent.

I see by the liner notes that this two-fer CD was originally much different on its original LP release, with a different track listing. Perhaps it would have been best if they stuck to the tracks on the original release, rather than giving us the entire recording as they do here. As it is, there is one CD of absolutely terrific stuff, well worth buying...and another CD of what is basically hyperactive lounge music. Fortunately all the good material is concentrated on disc 2. Disc One would probably make a good coaster for your martini.

On some of these songs, Jimmy is all over the place on the organ, though he only is occasionally "flashy" for flashy's sake. Great sounding recording-you really get a feel for the club environment- and rapport within this small combo.

Do not buy this unless you really (really) like organ-based jazz. The organ is overpowering on this 2-CD set (as it should be), and for me, a former organ player turned pianist, even I get really tired of the incessant leslie effect and those eight and ten finger chords. Oh, it's good, to be sure, but after a while, I really (really) just want it to stop. There are some songs that, even after I'm sick of hearing the organ, I still can listen to and really enjoy, such as Lover Man, Slightly Monkish, and Just Friends. Other than that, I'll just say what I say in 90% of the other Blue Note recordings I've reviewed: The liner notes are generous and helpful, the Rudy Van Gelder remastering results in a clean, crisp, noise-free recording that does not detract from the music, and all in all, this makes a good addition to any jazz music collection. Just remember: this is organ music and Jimmy Smith will not for the briefest of moments let you forget it.