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Artist
Kenny Burrell & Jimmy Smith
12+ albums
jazzeasy listening60scool jazzbop
about
"Kenny Burrell's smooth, tasteful guitar work and Jimmy Smith's intense, fire-breathing approach to the Hammond organ have been complementing each other, and delighting audiences, since the two first recorded together in 1957," reads a Verve records blurb about the Burrell and Smith album Blue Bash! Jimmy Smith, nicknamed "The Incredible Jimmy Smith", (December 8, 1925 – February 8, 2005) was a jazz musician whose Hammond B-3 electric organ performances helped to popularize this instrument. Born James Oscar Smith in Norristown, Pennsylvania, USA. Smith was influenced by both gospel and blues. He first achieved prominence in the 1950s when his recordings became popular on jukeboxes. In the sixties and seventies he helped create the jazz style known as 'soul jazz'. While the electric organ was used in jazz by Fats Waller and Count Basie, Smith's virtuoso improvisation technique on the Hammond helped to popularize the electric organ as a jazz and blues instrument. For ballads, he played walking bass lines on the bass foot pedals. For uptempo tunes, he would play the bass line on the lower manual and use the pedals for emphasis on the attack of certain notes, which helped to emulate the attack and sound of a string bass. Smith was a prolific recording artist, recording with the Blue Note label beginning in 1956. His early albums with Blue Note, included Home Cookin' , The Sermon!, House Party, Midnight Special, Prayer Meetin' , and Back at the Chicken Shack. Smith signed to
