Smoke Sessions

[Tom 1960]

If this is a topic that has already been covered here on the forum, please inform me and I will delete. Presently I'm listening to the Joe Farnsworth album City of Sounds, which features Kenny Barron and Peter Washington. I was kind of curious as to what are some of your favorite releases from the label? I definitely would like to do a deeper dive. Thank you!

[Rabshakeh]

It does have a high hit rate. I know there are lots of fans on this forum. 

The ones that I have enjoyed most have been:

Bobby Watson, Vincent Herring and Gary Bartz - Bird at 100

Buster Williams - Unalome

Joe Farnsworth - Time To Swing

Joe Farnsworth - In What Direction Are You Headed?

Orrin Evans - The Magic of Now

Something Else! Featuring Vincent Herring - Soul Jazz

Vincent Herring - Preaching to the Choir

This shallow, but I also really like the high gloss photographs on the covers. 

[HutchFan]

A couple of my faves:

[Peter Friedman]

Here are just a few of my favorites"

Johnny O'Neal - In The Moment

David Hazeltine - For All We Know

Eric Reed - Groovewise

Cyrus Chestnut - Midnight Melodies

Vincebt Herring - Night and Day

[kh1958]

Louis Hayes, Return of the Jazz Communicators

Heads of State, Search For Peace

Nicholas Payton, Relaxin' with Nick

Bobby Watson, Keepin' It Real

Joe Farnsworth, City of Sounds

Joe Farnsworth, In What Direction are you Headed?

Way Escoffery, Alone

Eddie Henderson, Witness to History

Charles McPherson, Reverence

Rene Rosnes, Crossing Paths

[Milestones]

Steve Turre has been on the label for a while now.  The one I like best is Colors of the Masters.  

[HutchFan]

36 minutes ago, kh1958 said:

Rene Rosnes, Crossing Paths

Oh yes. All of Rosnes' albums for Smoke Sessions are excellent. 

 

[HutchFan]

One that I haven't heard, but it's on my "to get" list:

[jazzbo]

1 hour ago, kh1958 said:

 

Wayne Escoffery, Alone

 

I like this one a lot.

[jlhoots]

Farnsworth: The Big Room

[felser]

[Kevin Bresnahan]

18 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Oh yes. All of Rosnes' albums for Smoke Sessions are excellent. 

 

I agree 100% with this. Great stuff from Renee on this label. Ditto Harold Mabern. I have almost all of these two pianists' releases from the Smoke Sessions label.

There was a time when I thought I would buy every release from this label - they were that good. But they eventually started releasing more than I really needed to buy, so I backed off from that.

Because I've fallen off a bit, most of my favorites, in addition to Renee's & Harold's releases, are mostly from their early days:

Vincent Herring - The Uptown Shuffle

Harold Mabern - To Love And Be Loved

Javon Jackson - Expression

David Hazeltine - For All We Know

Steve Davis - Think Ahead

The Cookers - The Call Of The Wild And Peaceful Heart

One For All - The Third Decade

Eric Alexander & Vincent Herring - Split Decision

I really need to pick up Heads Of State's two releases - "Search For Peace" and "Four In One" as I meant to buy them when they came out and I just realized I never did get myself a copy of either one.

 

 

[Guy Berger]

On 3/7/2026 at 2:22 PM, HutchFan said:

One that I haven't heard, but it's on my "to get" list:

This one is very good