Lucky Peterson Tribute To Jimmy Smith

Lucky Peterson
Tribute To Jimmy Smith
Jazzbook Records

Lucky Peterson's passing left a significant hole for music lovers. I first met Lucky with his father, James Peterson, while I was in graduate school in Buffalo and did a blues program on WBFO. He was a prodigious talent then, and of course, he had a significant career working of Little Milton and Bobby Bland before setting forth on his own. Of course, he is best known as a bluesman, but he had considerable jazz chops, as displayed on this tribute to one of his main influences on the organ, the legendary Jimmy Smith.

On this date centered on Smith's music, Peterson is accompanied by guitarist Kelyn Crapp and drummer Herlin Riley. There are also guest appearances by Nicholas Fowler on trumpet, Archie Shepp on tenor sax and vocals, and Phillipe Petrucciani on guitar. Things start with strong renditions of a trio of tunes associated with Smith, Jimmy Forrest's "Night Train," Smith's "The Sermon," and Dizzy Gillespie's "The Champ." There is a collaboration with Archie Sheep, "Jimmy Wants to Groove," which is a musical mashup of various blues numbers. Shepp's booting tenor sax and singing meshes with Peterson's chicken fried playing. Riley maintains a relaxed shuffle groove here. Lucky's passionate singing on "Singing This Song 4 U," a reworking of Leon Russell's "A Song For You," follows. Crapp's nimble guitar backing is noteworthy on this track. With Riley laying down a light Caribbean groove, Crapp and Lucky sparkle on "Jimmy's Groove." The trio follows with an excellent rendition of "Misty," and Shepp's gutbucket tenor sax returns for a relaxed interpretation of "Back At the Chicken Shack."

Guitarist Petrucciani wrote and plays on "Blues For Wes," a tribute to the late guitar genius and the classic recordings Smith and Montgomery made. Montgomery's influence is evident in Petrucciani's fleet solo, followed by Peterson's mesmerizing B-3 solo. It is a superb close to an outstanding recording showcasing Peterson's command of the B-3 and his considerable jazz chops.

I purchased this. Here is Lucky Peterson performing a tribute to Jimmy Smith at a jazz festival.

Wes Montgomery Kept Movin'

The great Wes Montgomery is celebrated in a new box set, Movin’: The Complete Verve Recordings, from Verve through the Hip-O-Select, which like Verve is part of the Universal Music Group. Like other recent Hip-O-Select box sets, this comes in the form of a hard cover book which contains substantial annotations from Wall Street music journalist Marc Myers (who also does the excellent jazzwax.com blog) along with five CDs that contain all of the substantial musical legacy that Montgomery produced for Verve, after his important, innovative and influential Riverside recordings. My only quibble with the packaging is that the pages used to contain the CDs (which contain session information) hold the CDs in a manner that makes it slightly difficult to extract and return to the sleeves the CDs without getting one’s fingerprints on the shiny side of the CD.

Myers essay is entitled Birth of the Mod, and gives and overview of Montgomery’s career with a focus on the Verve recordings. While comfortable in his hometown Indianapolis, he nevertheless became a major jazz performer through his association with the Riverside label. The death of Riverside’s Bill Grauer was eventually followed by bankruptcy. Without a record label, Montgomery signed with Verve and Creed Taylor who was one of its primary jazz producers who had been working with Jimmy Smith, Stan Getz and others. Myers details the recording of the eight albums by Montgomery on Verve which marked some of Taylor’s earliest jazz-pop experimentations and which turned the guitarist into a jazz-pop avatar to quote Myers.

With Verve, Taylor mixed recordings of jazz standards, popular numbers and show numbers often with big bands that still had Montgomery’s guitar in front. From the first moments of his initial Movin’ Wes to the collaborations with Jimmy Smith, Montgomery’s brilliant fretwork was on display. While some of his recordings like the rendition of People on the Johnny Pate arranged first album employed fadeouts like pop 45s others like his rendition of the Duke Ellington classic “Caravan” were front and center burners. And it wasn’t simply Johnny Pate. Taylor also employed Don Sebesky, Claus Ogerman and Oliver Nelson for other big band sessions.

Not to be forgotten among these big band sessions are the sessions with the Wynton Kelly Trio that included some live recordings. Jimmy Cobb, the trio’s drummer, recalls that Montgomery was somewhat uncomfortable with the commercial material, and felt the material was beneath what Montgomery was capable of. Myers explains how Montgomery, despite initially resisting such material became more comfortable with it employing the example of Going Out of My Head. After first resting the simplicity of the material, Montgomery would make a Grammy winning recording, working out stuff with Grady Tate before the recording.

Yet as the recordings with Wynton Kelly and later the collaborations with Jimmy Smith make most evident, Montgomery had matured but remained the brilliant improvisor mixing single notes chords and octaves and the best of the orchestrations simply add punch to this brilliance, but even when simply embellishing a melody as on Going Out Of My Head, his tone and note placement produced magic. When Montgomery and Smith collaborate on Down By the Riverside or Milestones with terrific Oliver Nelson charts the sparks fire. Then there are the small group sides by Smith and Montgomery with just Grady Tate and Ray Barretto on King of the Road and Baby Its Cold Outside that makes one wish these two had recorded more.

It is almost impossible to find any recording on this that doesn’t possess at least some musical magic, even the tracks with some imperfections that remained unissued at the time of recording. Of course, some of the alternates and other tracks have been subsequently reissued. Unless one has an extensive collection of the source CDs, this is a must for fans of Wes Montgomery and/or jazz guitar.

This was a purchase and I believe it would make a terrific gift for the jazz lover or guitar music lover on your gift list.

New Jimmy Smith DVD Captures Organ Legend at Park

Among the latest in the Jazz Icons® series of DVDs (Naxos/Reelin’ in the Years) is the great organist Jimmy Smith from a French television broadcast of a 1969 performance at the fabled Salle Pleyel “Live in ‘69.” While one might find incredulous Bob Porter’s claim (in his foreword to the accompanying booklet for this CD) that it should be blasphemy to suggest that Smith was not one of the four or five greatest jazz musicians of the past fifty years, there can be no denying the greatness that Smith brought to jazz and really took the organ in jazz to new heights and was one of the jazz greats of the last half century.

He is seen with his trio of guitarist Eddie McFadden, who was on some of Smith’s Blue Note dates, and drummer Charles Crosby, best known for stints with B.B. King and Roland Kirk. The Paris concert opens with a blistering “Sonnymoon For Two,” followed by a lovely “Days of Wine and Roses,” with lovely single note playing by McFadden, as Smith adding some choice voicings before his own solo. Then the trio kicks off on a twenty minute plus rendition of “The Sermon,” with McFadden’s fleet bluesy solo as Smith’s fills, comps and otherwise pushes the guitarist’s playing as the camera catches Smith’s smiles of approval, before Smith launches his solo, with perhaps the most inspired playing from this evening which is saying much. Church organ sounds open up “Alfie,” as the trio takes the tempo down before concluding the first set with an upbeat “Satin Doll,” with Smith sounding like a full big band. The second set opens with a hot swinging rendition of “Organ Grinder’s Swing,” followed by some deep blues jazz organ as he rocks “Got My Mojo Working,” with a very able vocal and see Crosby’s sticks superimposed on Smith’s hands on the B-3. Smith opens “See See Rider” with some moody chords before stating the melody and getting down in the alley with McFadden playing some gritty blues . Another blues follows with a boogaloo groove before “My Romance” changes the mood, followed by a slightly slower rendition of “Satin Doll,” that leads into the credits ending a truly superb video. Ashley Kahn provides a full appreciation of Smith as well as places this performance in its context and the Reelin’ in the Years Production folk have done a terrific job in transferring the original French TV broadcast to digital video and the sound is first-rate. Which is fitting because Smith and his trio is inspired throughout on an evening of great music (nearly 85 minutes).

Pursuant to recent FTC regulations, I disclose that this DVD was received from the firm handling publicity for the Jazz Icons® release.