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As you can tell from the cover, by the time Jimmy Smith was recording for Milestone he wasn’t the spring chicken [shack] of his youth. That said, what made Smith so legendary is that he kept on gigging and playing the mighty Hammond B-3 almost to the very end when he passed away last year.

In recognition, most of this CD contains tracks from two live recordings in 1990 including his massive hits, ‘Back At The Chicken Shack’ and ‘The Sermon’. Both were originally recorded on Blue Note in the late 50s/early 60s and have stood the test of time (as we discovered on Jimmy ‘the protégé’ McGriff’s compilation The Best of the Sue Years 1962-1965).

The massive ‘The Sermon’ features Eddie Harris and you can’t get more acid jazz than that! The crowd at Keystone Korner certainly enjoyed the experience, as did the Fat Tuesday crowd in NYC, November 1990 for the other tracks. The standard, ‘Summertime’ with Kenny Burrell on guitar and Stanley Turrentine on tenor never sounded better than it does here.

The four tracks that open this set are some very grown up blues and are somewhat a warm up for the live tracks. The line-ups on these tracks mean little to me save for guitarist Phil Upchurch but it’s good that they get a second chance for reappraisal. Breaking away from the live trio/quartet, Smith sounds very comfortable in a big-band sound, especially on Ellington’s ‘C Jam Blues’ and on ‘Round The Corner’ and ‘Sum Serious Blues’; two trombones, trumpet, three sax, guitar, bass and drums. Of course, arguably his other greatest success, this time on Verve, was this the Lalo Schifrin orchestrated, ‘The Cat’, which ended up as the theme tune on The BBC’s Money Programme for years.

Particularly feeling the bouncy ‘Here Comes C.T.’ with Curtis Peagler on sax and Upchurch doing some serious soloing on this Burrell composition. Who knows anything more about Curtis Peagler?

Meantime, the CD ends where it all started, ‘Back At The Chicken Shack’ where Turrentine, Burrell and Grady Tate all get a chance to strut, but nothing like The Incredible, Mr. Jimmy Smith! Classic stuff.

Reviewed: Jimmy Smith — Milestone Profiles (Milestone Records) Cat. No: 0888072300972 Release date: Nov 2006 Credits: Compiled by Nick Philips, Joe Tarantino 24-bit Remastering 2006 at Fantasy Studios, Berkeley.
Tracklisting:
1 C Jam Blues (6:59)
2 ‘Round The Corner (6:01)
3 Here Comes C.T. (6:21)
4 Sum Serious Blues (7:54)
5 Midnight Special (Live) (6:50)
6 Mood Indigo (Live) (6:08)
7 The Sermon (Live) (9:27)
8 Summertime (Live) (8:19)
9 Back At The Chicken Shack (6:30)

Links:
Jimmy Smith at All About Jazz
www.eddieharris.com
Keystone Korner, San Francisco