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Joey D./Jimmy Smith "Legacy"


CJ Shearn

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http://philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=8986

OBITUARY

Jimmy Smith, 1928-2005

Philly native and Hammond B-3 player Joey DeFrancesco remembers his Norristown-born friend and mentor.

by Joey DeFrancesco

The world has lost a true American musical genius. James Oscar "Jimmy" Smith passed away on Tues., Feb. 8. He was my inspiration and my friend.

My father (organist "Papa" John DeFrancesco) introduced me to Jimmy's recordings when I was in the womb. When I was 4 years old Pop brought home our first Hammond B-3 organ, and when I realized that was the sound I'd been hearing, I couldn't stay away.

My dad first took me to see Jimmy when I was 7 years old, and I was done. Jimmy actually let me play that night. It was the biggest thrill of my young life.

Jimmy was a visionary who possessed the foresight and creative mind to take an unconventional instrument and place it in the mainstream. His musical skills were far more advanced than those of any other jazz organist who came before or after. There was the blues-drenched tradition, and his innate groove and sense of swing, of course, but what Jimmy had above all was a keen harmonic sense.

Jimmy's playing was so advanced, he was playing like Coltrane before Coltrane. In fact, 'Trane was in Jimmy's early bands, and I believe he copped many things from Jimmy. Jimmy was an innovator on the level of Charlie Parker.

Jimmy's wife Lola passed away last March, which triggered many changes in his life. He had relocated to Arizona, where I'd been living for six years. Although we were friends and had played and hung out together before, we immediately started calling each other to touch base like long-lost friends. In those early conversations we started flirting with the idea of cutting a studio album together.

When we were about to start recording, Jimmy made one final change in his life: He hired a new personal manager, Bob Clayton. Bob was the catalyst in making Jimmy healthy and sound.

Bob is a retired executive who owns a soul food restaurant and club, Bobby C's, in Phoenix. Jimmy and I made our home at that club, at a corner table. Many things were discussed there-touring plans, organ history, jazz history, everything and anything. A month before recording started, we appeared together at Catalina's Jazz Club in Hollywood. Jimmy was back!

We spent three days in August recording. Jimmy played as well as ever despite an injured left hand. There wasn't a tremendous amount of time for preproduction, so the tape just rolled, and we burned the studio to the ground every day. Thankfully, my record label understood the historic relevance of the sessions, and they let me produce them in the way I felt most comfortable.

Jimmy came out of those sessions and a subsequent gig with me at Catalina's with renewed vigor. That's when I approached John Burk at Concord Records with the idea of letting me produce a new Jimmy Smith solo project.

Jimmy hadn't had his own solo studio release since early 2000. I didn't think that record was very Jimmy Smith-like at all. It didn't swing (though Jimmy did), and they'd thrown in all these guests to help it along. Jimmy didn't need any help.

I stopped by Jimmy's place Feb. 2 to sign the contracts. We were watching Westerns (typical Jimmy), laughing, having our normal great time, all while talking about the album concept, what musicians would be used, etc.

Jimmy had some wonderfully creative ideas about recording some more modern things using Cajun instruments. He even wanted to cut an R. Kelly tune we'd always groove to down at the club. He signed the contract and laughingly asked about his money. I left after a few hours, telling him I'd call him the next day.

That was the last time I saw my friend.

When my manager called to tell me of Jimmy's passing, an emptiness hit me like never before. I still can't get over thinking that the man had come full circle. With the exception of missing Lola, he was back.

There had been a team of folks taking care of him, respecting him and loving him. I'd played with him just a few days earlier. We jammed at Bobby C's with George Benson and some friends. He was 100 percent Jimmy-with all the old swagger and confidence.

Jimmy was buried Thurs., Feb. 17. I was 3,000 miles away playing Yoshi's Jazz Club in Oakland, Calif., in what was supposed to be the first in a string of tour dates for Jimmy and me this year.

Bob told me to go through with the dates because Jimmy would've wanted it that way. So we went onstage Thursday night with his vintage B-3 sitting empty under a lone spotlight.

I'm not ready to say goodbye to my friend. Playing the gig meant I got to say hello to him again.

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Jazz community mourns loss of organ pioneer Jimmy Smith

Larry Rodgers

The Arizona Republic

Feb. 13, 2005 12:00 AM

Jimmy Smith created a new jazz sound in the '50s when he brought the Hammond B-3 organ out of America's living rooms and into its nightclubs and juke joints. When he walked his feet over the bass pedals, pounded chords with his left hand and flew over the high notes with his right, he made a joyful noise that mixed R&B, blues, gospel and bebop.

Smith died Tuesday at age 79 in his east Phoenix home.

"It's like the loss of Miles Davis or John Coltrane or Charlie Parker - it's the same thing," says Valley organ whiz Joey DeFrancesco. advertisement

If that's overstating, it's not by much.

"In the '50s, he was the dominating force in jazz organ," says Patricia Myers, a Valley writer who covers jazz for local and national publications. "There were other organists - Shirley Scott, Jack McDuff, Jim McGriff - but he was the forward force."

The power of Smith's playing made a longtime believer out of local jazz promoter Al Singer.

"The B-3 links the blues, jazz and gospel," Singer says. "Nobody ever played it like Jimmy Smith."

Singer points to Smith's sessions for Blue Note Records, for seven years, starting in 1956, as some of the most important - and profitable - for the legendary jazz imprint. The Sermon!, recorded in 1958, and 1960's Back at the Chicken Shack are two standouts from that period, Myers says.

Smith later recorded another jazz classic, Walk on the Wild Side, for Verve Records.

Even as his output became more spotty in the '80s and beyond, Smith toured internationally and commanded respect from his fellow musicians.

"No matter how much I thought I knew all his stuff, he would still pull stuff out (onstage)," says DeFrancesco, who performed monthly with Smith at Bobby C's jazz club in central Phoenix for the past nine months.

"Those old cats - don't mess with them," DeFrancesco says with a laugh. "They are loaded with . . . so many creative things, and (Smith) just wanted to keep moving forward."

Smith formed a close bond with DeFrancesco, 33, and identified him as the leading candidate to carry on the B-3 evolution.

"In a very sweet, loving way, he kind of passed the torch to me," DeFrancesco says. "It's an honor."

Some who have encountered Smith in recent years might chuckle at DeFrancesco's "sweet, loving" reference.

Smith could be arrogant to the media - in a 2003 interview, he told The Republic, "I'm Jimmy Smith, that's all you need to say" - and he didn't tolerate much talking at his shows.

"If you were in the audience, and you were heckling or being too loud, Jimmy got on you, and that turned some people off," says Bobby C's owner Robert Clayton, who managed Smith's career for the past nine months.

Smith came to the Valley in January 2004, when his wife, Lola, was fighting cancer. She died in March, and the loss hit Smith hard, Clayton says.

His manager and DeFrancesco spent lots of time with Smith, trying to keep his health and spirits up.

"I tried to bring him into our family, but Jimmy wasn't a person who had a lot of patience with kids," Clayton says. "He was hyperactive in his mind; he was always working on music. . . . That's how he rehearsed and practiced - in his mind."

Although a leg injury had slowed Smith in the past year, he seemed to be rejuvenated onstage. Myers saw that spark as she watched him and DeFrancesco perform together in California in January to celebrate Smith's being named a jazz master by the National Endowment of the Arts:

"He walked across in front of the stage, showing his every year. He looked like an old man, all bent over, but looking real nice, dressed in a suit.

"They helped him onstage. He sat down at that bench. Joey started playing a riff, and Jimmy joined in, a grin on his face. As the minutes went by and he played, the decades just slipped away, and pretty soon he looked as young as Joey."

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I don't know if this is the article you are talking about, but it's pretty funny.

O.K. You've decided to own a Hammond. Naturally, you would like to pay as little as possible. So wouldn't an older model be less expensive? Yes, it could.

But there are some disadvantages. For one thing, an older model would be at least 30 years old, maybe even 60 years old. It would feature tonewheel technology that is no longer made. So what would happen when the tonewheel or other components fail?

While it's a distinct possibility, tonewheels failing is very rare and usually results only from an organ that's been abused (ie, not oiled, not cared for, stored in a bad environment, etc.) As long as the organ is properly maintained, the tonewheels themselves will never fail.

Tooling equipment to make the tonewheels and other components of these older Hammonds does not exist. This means that the vibrato and chorus scanners, tonewheel chassis, pre-amp housings, motors, key channels, drawbar wiring, pedal pads, capacitors, contact assemblies and the keys cannot be manufactured. And the Hammond Suzuki factory does not carry any of them in stock.

This was obviously not written by a tech. Pre-amp housings? They are made out of sheet aluminum and why would you need to replace one? The components inside may go bad, but they are all readily available. Even the transformers are easy to come by.

Drawbar wiring? Um, it's standard gauge electrical hook-up wire. Pedal pads? Just pieces of felt that can easily be made by hand from a sheet of felt. Capacitors? Every capacitor in the organ is a standard value that is readily available from any electronic supply house. In fact, it's recommened that the caps be replaced in all organs, since they are at least 30 years old and those old caps are not as good as the ones we have today. They start to fluctuate in value.

The only way to get a replacement part for an older Hammond is to get it from another older Hammond that still functions. And, in that case, you might as well purchase the entire organ. But that doesn't make much sense, because its components are also old and apt to fail at any time.

Yes, but what they don't say is you could pick up TWO mint condition B3s for only half as much as what the New B3 costs.

Besides the problem of finding replacement parts for an older Hammond, you would also need to keep the organ lubricated, as well as regularly clean the busbar and vibrato-chorus scanner.

Oiling a Hammond is not hard and only needs to be done once a year. The oil is still made (it's just very light machine oil... sewing machine oil would work). The busbars only need cleaned if the organ has been abused or not stored correctly. I've cleaned mine once and it made a lot of difference, but not every organ needs it. The vibrato-chorus scanner is easy to maintain.

New Hammond organs, on the other hand, require minimal maintenance, are more durable and are backed by limited warranties. So, should any component become defective, it can be easily replaced at no cost to you.

Until said components are obselete, just like some components in the original Hammonds! :)

In addition, new Hammonds are the result of over 20 years' digital development and technological innovation. This is why new Hammonds sound, play and feel exactly like the Hammonds of old.

Not really. They are close, but they are not exactly like the Hammonds of old because each Hammond sounds and plays a little different. Digital does not vary.

New Hammonds also have new features that older models don't have, such as midi capability, velocity-sensitive keys, sequencing and disk drives.

Whoopee.

Another major advantage you have with new Hammonds is their lighter weight. Our New B-3, for example, weighs some 40% less than the Original B-3. And our Portable B-3 weighs even less than that, and can be set up and taken down in a couple of minutes.

That's a nice feature, but it's not that hard to move the original B3 around. Thanks to government regulation, almost every club / restaurant / bar in the country has handicap access, which means ramps and elevators. The days of hauling a B3 up three flights of stairs to get to the stage are gone.

From the standpoint of convenience and economics, you should definitely consider a new Hammond for yourself or your church. You won't be able to detect any difference in sound quality, playability and touch between it and an older Hammond. And you will have an instrument that is lightweight, versatile and will last for many years.

I would consider a New B3 for myself if they didn't cost twice what I paid for the van that I use to move my original B3!!!!!!!! $20,000?!? Yeah, right. A working musician can really afford that.

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If the new portable B3 were 3 grand, I'd consider buying one. Maybe.

However, these new B3s are so outrageously priced, who in the hell is buying them? Churches? Millionaires? Like Jim said, you can go get a mint B3 for at least half of what these new ones cost. And that's a mint one. The original.

Look, last time I looked, B3s don't have digital readouts. Never trust an intstrument with a digital readout is my motto.

Until the average gig pays about 10,000% more than what they do now, this just isn't reasonable for a working musician.

Edited by Soul Stream
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I don't know if this is the article you are talking about, but it's pretty funny.

QUOTE 

O.K. You've decided to own a Hammond. Naturally, you would like to pay as little as possible. So wouldn't an older model be less expensive? Yes, it could.

But there are some disadvantages. For one thing, an older model would be at least 30 years old, maybe even 60 years old. It would feature tonewheel technology that is no longer made. So what would happen when the tonewheel or other components fail?

While it's a distinct possibility, tonewheels failing is very rare and usually results only from an organ that's been abused (ie, not oiled, not cared for, stored in a bad environment, etc.) As long as the organ is properly maintained, the tonewheels themselves will never fail.

QUOTE 

Tooling equipment to make the tonewheels and other components of these older Hammonds does not exist. This means that the vibrato and chorus scanners, tonewheel chassis, pre-amp housings, motors, key channels, drawbar wiring, pedal pads, capacitors, contact assemblies and the keys cannot be manufactured. And the Hammond Suzuki factory does not carry any of them in stock.

This was obviously not written by a tech. Pre-amp housings? They are made out of sheet aluminum and why would you need to replace one? The components inside may go bad, but they are all readily available. Even the transformers are easy to come by.

Drawbar wiring? Um, it's standard gauge electrical hook-up wire. Pedal pads? Just pieces of felt that can easily be made by hand from a sheet of felt. Capacitors? Every capacitor in the organ is a standard value that is readily available from any electronic supply house. In fact, it's recommened that the caps be replaced in all organs, since they are at least 30 years old and those old caps are not as good as the ones we have today. They start to fluctuate in value.

QUOTE 

The only way to get a replacement part for an older Hammond is to get it from another older Hammond that still functions. And, in that case, you might as well purchase the entire organ. But that doesn't make much sense, because its components are also old and apt to fail at any time.

Yes, but what they don't say is you could pick up TWO mint condition B3s for only half as much as what the New B3 costs.

QUOTE 

Besides the problem of finding replacement parts for an older Hammond, you would also need to keep the organ lubricated, as well as regularly clean the busbar and vibrato-chorus scanner.

Oiling a Hammond is not hard and only needs to be done once a year. The oil is still made (it's just very light machine oil... sewing machine oil would work). The busbars only need cleaned if the organ has been abused or not stored correctly. I've cleaned mine once and it made a lot of difference, but not every organ needs it. The vibrato-chorus scanner is easy to maintain.

QUOTE 

New Hammond organs, on the other hand, require minimal maintenance, are more durable and are backed by limited warranties. So, should any component become defective, it can be easily replaced at no cost to you.

Until said components are obselete, just like some components in the original Hammonds!

QUOTE 

In addition, new Hammonds are the result of over 20 years' digital development and technological innovation. This is why new Hammonds sound, play and feel exactly like the Hammonds of old.

Not really. They are close, but they are not exactly like the Hammonds of old because each Hammond sounds and plays a little different. Digital does not vary.

QUOTE 

New Hammonds also have new features that older models don't have, such as midi capability, velocity-sensitive keys, sequencing and disk drives.

Whoopee.

QUOTE 

Another major advantage you have with new Hammonds is their lighter weight. Our New B-3, for example, weighs some 40% less than the Original B-3. And our Portable B-3 weighs even less than that, and can be set up and taken down in a couple of minutes.

That's a nice feature, but it's not that hard to move the original B3 around. Thanks to government regulation, almost every club / restaurant / bar in the country has handicap access, which means ramps and elevators. The days of hauling a B3 up three flights of stairs to get to the stage are gone.

QUOTE 

From the standpoint of convenience and economics, you should definitely consider a new Hammond for yourself or your church. You won't be able to detect any difference in sound quality, playability and touch between it and an older Hammond. And you will have an instrument that is lightweight, versatile and will last for many years.

I would consider a New B3 for myself if they didn't cost twice what I paid for the van that I use to move my original B3!!!!!!!! $20,000?!? Yeah, right. A working musician can really afford that.

So you really like the new B3 huh? Maybe you should change your name to "New B3er"

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