I wrote and posted what follows on Facebook on 18 November, 2019. It was one of my earliest "Album of the Week" sermons. Last week was Record Store Day--my favourite holiday. The store I visited, in addition to all the exclusive releases, had a sale on all their used titles. I found this particular title in the bin and felt compelled to buy it. It was one my mother had--which is a long story and, in hindsight, kind of surprising. She gave me her copy more than 25 years ago and it currently hangs framed on my bedroom wall. Seeing it again brought back a lot of memories from my teenage years and prompted me to revisit what I wrote then.
As a teenager who, at the time, was not exactly enamored with the popular music of the time, I was constantly raiding my parents' record collection looking for new stuff to listen to.
One morning before school, I was flipping through the records when I picked out one that I had seen many times but had never actually played. The cover was a black and white photograph of a man standing in the rain under an umbrella outside the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Museum, presumably in New York. With a big smile on his face, he was placing another, presumably broken, umbrella in a trash bin. In the lower right corner, in red stenciled letters were the words, "includes the exciting jazz version of WALK ON THE WILD SIDE." I thought to myself, "Jazz? I like jazz. I remember hearing Benny Goodman some years back. That was pretty good."
Boy, was I ever about to have my mind blown. I put the record on the turntable and dropped the needle on the opening track (the aforementioned "Walk on the Wild Side" written by Elmer Bernstein and Mack David for the film of the same name released that year). The first thing I heard was what sounded like jingle bells. I immediately began to wonder if one of my parents had put the wrong album in the sleeve. Then this wonderful bass riff started followed a few bars later by reed instruments, then horns, and before long an entire big band led by the great Oliver Nelson began swinging like nobody's business. And we wouldn't even get to Jimmy Smith's Hammond organ solo for nearly two and a half minutes.
I found out later that this album was the first that Smith recorded for Verve records in 1962 and the first with a big band. Up to that point, he was known for primarily small trio and quartet work for Blue Note Records. In fact the second side of the record is just Smith with a trio (featuring guitarist Quentin Warren and drummer Donald Bailey), which gives that side a much bluesier feel, most notably on the track "Beggar for the Blues."
While this album is never seen on a list of the greatest albums of all time--or even Jimmy Smith's greatest albums, for that matter--this was the album that made me fall in love with jazz. In the nearly 30 years since I first played that album, I've discovered all kinds of great jazz works from the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, Dave Brubeck, and Art Blakey (among others). But this album is still my favourite of that genre.
From 1962, please enjoy "The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith," as he's credited on the album cover, with his Verve debut, Bashin'.
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please, as always, remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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