The Magnificent Goldberg

He deserved every bit of it. It doesn't mean the other organists aren't special or deserving either (and really, who cares how Downbeat readers or editors vote?) but his influence cannot be denied. I love Patton, but despite what he or others might claim, there is a definite Smith influence there in the way he set up the drawbars, the left-hand bass, and the solo sound. Of course he tried his own settings (as did Groove, McGriff, McDuff, Patterson, etc.) but it is based on the combination that Smith came up with. It's ridiculous to belittle Jimmy Smith because he was popular and downplay his influence. He was popular because he made good music that connected with a lot people. Even today I get folks that come up to me and ask me my influence (or sometimes they just say, "You listened to a lot of Jimmy Smith, didn't you?") and when I tell them Jimmy Smith they smile wide and tell me how much they love him. He changed the instrument. I can't say it better than that. Yes to all of that Jim, except I didn't and wouldn't belittle JOS under any circs. MG

Just finished Stanley Turrentine Quintet sessions Mosaic - all 5 discs - luverley! MG

Yep, raining here too. Been quite nice for a week or so, but today sux. MG

Now that's an obscure joke. I'm sort of amazed that I got it. I didn't even know I was missing a joke. MG http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Jubilee-Altern...e/dp/0345405021 Ah, I see - thanks Kalo. MG

Depends what you collect, Steve - there's no Soul Jazz on Jazztone, as far as I know. I never heard of the label. MG

Clem, I'm not talking about what Jimmy did musically; obviously he borrowed a lot of things stylistically from what was going on around him. The same with Larry Young; apply McCoy Tyner-esque-ness on organ... voila, Larry Young. What I am talking about is Jimmy's technique, his approach to the instrument. Before him, nobody played the Hammond organ like that. The idea of walking the bass lines with (mainly) the left hand, and using the pedals for tapping accents just ever slightly ahead of the beat to simulate the plucking of an acoustic bass, the 888000000 registration with C3 chorus and 3rd harmonic percussion that became his signature solo sound (and pretty much everybody elses after him, with a few exceptions), using 848000000 for bass lines and chords on the lower manual... these are things that other organists before Jimmy did not do and everybody after him did. He changed the way the instrument was played not only in jazz, but in rock, blues, and beyond. I hear Jimmy Smith in every organist that came after him. Every single one. His influence in undeniable. Not wanting to deny a word of what you say, Jim, but that has absolutely no relevance to poll votes from the general public who simply wouldn't have known about what was going on there - and probably wouldn't have cared, had they known. JOS produced an effect using these elements of technique, which was what people wanted to hear. That was what was important, what led to the seemingly endless supply of hit albums, and votes in DB polls. Now, if you say that everyone after JOS, and no one before him, was doing this stuff, that does (or might, if we can assume for a minute that the critics of the day had the same degree of knowledge and understanding as you) explain a little of why a lot of critics at the time held that the other organists were Smith clones. But I still think that attitude unreasonably denigrates what other organists were doing, using, OK, the same technical elements as JOS. No one reasonable would take a similar view of saxophonists as all being Hawk clones. Further, of course, a fair number of those organists lumped in by critics as JOS followers were nothing of the kind. Hank Marr and Johnny "Hammond" Smith both developed their styles before JOS emerged. Sam Lazar's style, it seems to me, though no one has any but aural evidence for this as far as I know, was based on that of fellow St Louis organist Tommy Dean. Dan Gould recently sent me drops of two early Baby Face Willette singles - from 1952 and 1955. The 1952 sides are on piano, but one side of the 1955 Vee-Jay recording is a vocal version of the tune that Baby Face later recorded as "Chances are few" on the "Stop & listen" album. On this cut, Willette's organ playing seems to me almost exactly the same as on the 1961 recording. So there's another who developed a style without ref to JOS - in fact, as it says on the notes for that album (or "Face to face", can't be asked to look it up), Willette's style is actually based on gospel organ styings - specifically those of Rev Maceo Woods (whose Vee-Jay single of "Amazing grace" sold half a million and was VERY influential) and Professor Herman Stevens, the Poet of the Gospel Organ, both of whom were working in Chicago at the time Willette was woodshedding. And although Shirley Scott didn't record until a few months after JOS' BN debut, I reckon there's little doubt that she was developing her style contemporaneously with him (and yes, they probably both heard each other at the time in Philly) and was another who was clearly coming from a different direction. And there's the evidence of John Patton's inspiration that Soul Stream has quoted. Understand - I'm not trying to run JOS down - I'm trying to run all the others UP. There is a specific injustice here which is made plain by the vast differences in the numbers of votes in these polls. The injustice results from plain old fashioned hype; JOS was hyped beyond what he really deserved; in economic terms, he was getting rents. MG

I'm not really sure they weren't selling quite well. I suspect that, before Billboard started its R&B LP chart, in 1965, sales of material like "Along came John" weren't capable of being adequately captured and converted into chart positions. In that period, Michael Cusuna told David Rosenthal that normal first year sales for BN hard bop LPs were about 7,000. I'm pretty sure that "Along came John" beat those numbers by quite a margin; and continued to sell at a higher rate than other BNs - hence the non-issue of "Blue John", lest it detract from the first LP's sales. I would REALLY love to see sales figures for BN (and PR) albums for the late fifties/sixties, if they still exist among the BN files. MG

Jazztone was a mostly mail-order record label. A O. thread from the early days... Thanks Brownie - that's interesting. MG

but then you will be in trouble when time comes to replace the stylus! I'll place an indefinite contract with my hi-fi dealer to periodically service the deck etc. every few years before senility sets in. It would be nice, but what about if your dealer is older then you? Three no trumps. MG

Nice insights MG. The more I become aware of the working conditions of organ groups in the 60's, the more amazed I am at the ART that came out of some of these artists. John Patton was playing Coltrane-influenced music to working class folks who wanted to hear the bluuuuueeees. He paid a price for that. Read the bio on the JP Myspace blog. He and Grant went seperate ways basically because Grant wanted to keep the clubowners and audience happy and Patton wanted to make a different statement. Hell, JP was working a guitar-less trio with Harold Alexander screeching his ass off! How do you think that went down in clubs?! It didn't, as JP said...clubowners thought the band was going to far out and work became scarce. Guys like Patton and Young in particular were not giving the organ audience what they wanted. As Patton said, Larry Young had a place to play his experimentations since his father owned an organ room in Newark. Patton's trio was up there in Dashikis playing far reaching music...not the norm at that time. Now THAT stuff is REALLY interesting to someone who wasn't there at the time (haven't got round to the bio yet). I did have the feeling at the time that "Understanding" may have been too far out for the average organ room, but not "Certain feeling" or "Accent", both of which seemed to me to walk very precisely the narrow line between being comfortable and pushing the envelope. In an ideal world, John would have been able to move out of the organ rooms in the '70s, as they were closing down, into the mainstream jazz venues, possibly pulling people like Don Patterson with him and maybe making room for people like Rhoda and Lou to come back from France and play. I think he would have been more capable of being the bridge than Larry Young - well, Larry wasn't capable. But it ain't an ideal world. I also never knew Larry's dad had an organ room; which was it? MG

Sorry, it was back at the beginning of the thread and I didn't go back to check. Oh yes, there's no denying that. But - to THAT extent? - 10 times more votes than the #2s? and based on his hits from '65-'69? I don't think so. Jimmy was definitely hyped to modern jazz fans as THE only organist worthy of consideration. (Actually, that put me off him for a good few years - but also enabled me to explore others, which definitely wasn't a waste of time.) MG

That looks a good 'un, too. Who the heck was/were Jazztone? MG

I never knew he was from Madagascar - or a Duke! Zowie, thanks Chris. MG

Yes - I was there in 1960. MG Hey! I didn't know you went to school in London...

By and large, whoever said that the domination of the poll by JOS was because he was the only guy most people had heard of was about right. In some other thread, there's some stuff about Down Beat critics and their reviews of organ records. Jimmy Smith was about the only one to get consistent praise. Worse, every other organist was considered but a poor imitation of JOS. It was attitudes like that that kept me away from reading Down Beat and other jazz magazines. The appearance of people like Basie, Grant and Fischer and so on, and the high rating for Larry Young, reflect Down Beat's customer base. Don't forget that most of the organists we recognise as masters today played either solely or mainly for black customers. The organ rooms of Newark, Philly, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Baltimore etc etc were not frequented by Down Beat readers; their customers were local people, getting in a bit of relaxation after a poorly paid, hard, hard, day's grind, for not very much money. The no cover, no minimum policies of these rooms, and the music the organ bands played, met those needs perfectly. But not the needs of the more typical "jazz fan" or critic, who, apart from Hobsbawm, don't seem to have been very well attuned to the working class. MG

Thanks for the research guys. It's clear, from the case of Groove Holmes, that having hits definitely helped. He put 4 LPs onto the charts in '66. The amazing thing about that run of polls is how consistently well Don Patterson did (and his only hit LP was "Holiday Soul" at Christmas '67). Same goes for Shirley, with no hit albums, though working with Stanley, she would always have been before the public. Can't agree with SoulStream's view that the domination of JOS arose from the quality of his output at the time. These are his hit LPs over the period: THE MONSTER ORGAN GRINDER SWING GOT MY MOJO WORKIN' HOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN BUCKET CHRISTMAS COOKIN' (reissue of "Christmas '64") DYNAMIC DUO RESPECT BEST OF JIMMY SMITH JIMMY SMITH'S GREATEST HITS LIVIN' IT UP STAY LOOSE (R&B chart only) THE BOSS While some of those are damn fine albums... Back after I've emptied the dishwasher.... MG

Yaaaayy! (But I wouldn't buy it, myself; I'd had enough Joe Meek by '63 (though I've still got 1 45). Good for samples, I'd guess.) MG

Sonny Stitt disc 3 - the album called "37 minutes and 48 seconds with Sonny Stitt" now lasts 54:31 MG

Now that's an obscure joke. I'm sort of amazed that I got it. I didn't even know I was missing a joke. MG

Certainly did in Britain, Jim, if they worked in anything other than a factory environment. In 1960 I started work in the Cooks travel bureau at Harrods and we had to wear suits (even though I was in the back office). On Saturday mornings, sports clothes were permitted - that meant a tweed jacket and grey trousers, but still a tie. More relaxed views came in with the flower power bunch - so that's one thing we do owe them. MG PS of course, when we went out to the clubs in the evening, we didn't wear jackets & ties (Except my mate PierGiorgio, but he was Italian.)

This looks pretty reasonable. I look forward to the old folks home that will handle my 78s, 45s, LPs, K7s and CDs. MG

Is that because of the tie? Yes - Roundhay Grammar, Leeds MG

whereas everyone would expect Yusuf, Muhammad or Osama, in this case it's Sammich. I'm rather dissappointed the GGASW did not notice. MG

It's great, isn't it? That was the first time I'd played it for a few years and it really grabbed me. MG

He went to the same school as me! Thanks for that Chris - and to Chuck, too - I'd never seen a photo of him either, I think. MG PS - Chris, was it a coincidence that they were in front of two of Oliver's albums on the wall, or did those sleeves get rearranged for whatever photocall was on?