Courtesy of Jimmy Smith







Blue Note Records







Verve Records

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH JIMMY SMITH


Can you imagine the organ trio without Jimmy Smith? I can't. He brought the organ out of the clubs and into the mainstream and with his numerous monumental recordings on Blue Note, Smith is indeed The Champ. I sat down with The Champ, who still tours rigorously, as always, unedited and in his own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

JIMMY SMITH: I heard Mr. Wild Bill Davis. I heard him play in 1930 and he told me that it would take me fifteen years just to learn the pedals, the pedals of the organ and I got mad. I got madder than a mother fucker. I learned in three months. Three months. I was playing the organ for three months. It was a challenge for me in the beginning. And what I did, the way I did it, I had a guy put a three foot by three foot base so I wouldn't have to look down at the pedals. Most people had to look down at what they're hittin'. Well, shit, I had them make me a three foot by three foot chart and what is the way I learned how to play the pedals. And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find. It was a three foot stop on the organ. That is how I found my sound, the Jimmy Smith sound.


FJ: It almost seems like you were predestined to play the organ?

JIMMY SMITH: Oh, yeah.


FJ: Influences?

JIMMY SMITH: Davis was playing. Milt Buckner. You know, old guys. And Milt Buckner used to play with Lionel Hampton. That's years ago now. So I learned from these old guys.


FJ: Let's touch on your tenure with Blue Note and your relationship with its founder, Alfred Lion.

JIMMY SMITH: I was his lover. Did you hear what I said? I was his lover. Him and Frank, we were lovers. You see, Fred, we got married. It was a marriage. We had a marriage and I am sorry that he died. My first recording, a guy came down to Philadelphia and heard me play and he introduced me to Alfred Lion. I did my first recording. It was called The Champ. From then on, we just went ahead with The Sermon, Midnight Special, and all that shit.


FJ: You can build a shrine around The Sermon.

JIMMY SMITH: It is a classic! That is what I tell you boy. Lee (Morgan) played with Dizzy. He was about seventeen or eighteen years old. He was playing then. He was the bitch then. Alfred Lion got him. He got Hank Mobley. Who else is on there?


FJ: Tina Brooks.

JIMMY SMITH: Tina Brooks, yeah. How did you know that shit?


FJ: I love your shit.

JIMMY SMITH: (Laughing) Woo, shit! Woo, shit! They were the bad guys. Art Blakey. They were the monsters.


FJ: Home Cookin', Crazy! Baby, Back at the Chicken Shack, and Midnight Special, are classic Blue Note album covers.

JIMMY SMITH: Oh, yeah. Frank did all that. Frank Wolff.


FJ: The crux of your body of work has been in the context of the organ trio (organ, guitar, drums).

JIMMY SMITH: It just linked, Fred. It just linked. The sound, it just linked. I liked trio. I liked big band now, big band is better. Oliver Nelson, Thad Jones, and Lalo Schifrin. Now you're talking. So all these big bands were all right, but trio sounds the best. People like the idea of the trio and so I did mostly trio.


FJ: Let's talk about your collaborations with Wes Montgomery.

JIMMY SMITH: I met him in the Sixties. Man, shit, I am going to tell you something. We walked into the studio and we hit it right off. Hit it. Bam. Hit it. Just like that. I miss him.


FJ: What is soul jazz?

JIMMY SMITH: That is what it is. What else can you say? It is smoking. It stinks. It is rancor. It is rancor. It stinks. It is some stinking shit (laughing).


FJ: Down and dirty.

JIMMY SMITH: Oh, shit. People love it. People love it.


FJ: Music transcends color lines.

JIMMY SMITH: Hell, yeah. Ninety-five percent of my audience was white. All the colleges I played, most of the colleges, they were white.


FJ: Times haven't changed much.

JIMMY SMITH: Yeah, it is about the same. I have a different audience though. They are young, very young and they are playing organ too. I just came from Aspen, Colorado and they had fifteen kids I played for and they all played horns. They went crazy, Fred. They went crazy.


FJ: What is your secret?

JIMMY SMITH: No secret, I just like to play (laughing). Ain't no secret. Just play.


FJ: Are you Superman?

JIMMY SMITH: (Laughing) Yeah, there ain't no secret.


FJ: Let's touch on your soon to be released album on Verve.

JIMMY SMITH: Look at who is on that now. Dr. John, B.B. King, Etta James, Keb Mo, shit, all bad people. Everybody played good. You have got to hear this damn album. It's the bitch. It is the bitch buddy. It is wonderful.


FJ: What are your listening pleasures these days?

JIMMY SMITH: Me (laughing). Like Sermon, Chicken Shack, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Walk on the Wild Side, and the stuff I did with Wes.


FJ: Are you still keeping a rigorous touring schedule?

JIMMY SMITH: Not that much. I just came back from Germany. It gets tiresome. It gets tiresome. It is long rides. Long rides. Other than that, it is all right. I love it. I'm going to Chicago for the festival and then I will be at the Hollywood Bowl.


FJ: You are The Champ.

JIMMY SMITH: That's right. The monster. A bitch (laughing). I'm telling you man.


FJ: Anything left to prove?

JIMMY SMITH: No, not really.


FJ: Sounds like the road has been a good one for Jimmy Smith.

JIMMY SMITH: Yeah, it has. Once and a while you get tired.


Fred Jung is Jazz Weekly's Editor-In-Chief and likes his steaks rare. Comments?  Email Fred.