Jimmy Smith R.I.P.

NEW YORK (Blue Note Records) - Blue Note Records is saddened to announce the passing of Jimmy Smith, who single-handedly reinvented the Hammond B3 organ for jazz and created the model sound of the organ trio 1950s. Smith died yesterday of natural causes at home in Arizona. He was 76 years old.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1928, Smith at first took up piano, learning from his parents at an early age. He turned his attention to the organ in 1951, formed his first trio in 1953, and began working around Philadelphia, until his reputation spilled over the city's limits leading him to make his debut appearance in New York City in 1956.

Years afterwards, Blue Note co-founder Francis Wolff recalled the night he and his partner, Alfred Lion, first encountered Smith:
"I first heard Jimmy at Small's Paradise in January 1956. It was his first gig in New York. He was a stunning sight. A man in convulsions, face contorted, crouched over in apparent agony, his fingers flying, his foot dancing over the pedals. The air was filled with waves of sound 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. When he heard a good thing-that was enough.'

A few weeks later, on February 18, 1956, Smith hauled his organ out to engineer Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, NJ, to record what would be the first of 28 sessions as leader for Blue Note between 1956-63, a series of recordings that put forth 'a new sound' and launched a soul jazz craze that would raise Smith to a level of popularity uncommon for jazz musicians.

Smith's classic Blue Note titles include Home Cookin', The Sermon, Midnight Special, Prayer Meetin', and Back at the Chicken Shack.

Throughout the 60s and the 70s, Smith cemented his reputation with a fine run of successful recordings for Verve, including Organ Grinder Swing, Got My Mojo Workin', and Root Down.

In 1986, after Blue Note was reactivated, current President Bruce Lundvall and producer Michael Cuscuna brought Smith back to the label, reuniting him with saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and guitarist Kenny Burrell, as well as Van Gelder, for the recording of Go For Whacha' Know.

Smith's final sessions for Blue Note came in the '90s, when the label's Japanese company recorded him in a trio burning through a set of classic Blue Note tunes, resulting in The Master and The Master II.

R.I.P. James Oscar Smith.