R.I.P. Jimmy

Jimmy Smith died Wednesday. Smith, while never as elegant or prodigious as Duke Ellington or Charlie Christian, was just as important in changing the sound of jazz and how it was played. Smith singlehandedly adapted the Hammond B-3 organ to jazz. The sound of jazz today is inextricably linked to him, and rock, funk, and soul even more so.

There was just something undeniably cool about his sound. It sounded like sweat, like the sweat flying off dancers at some early 1950s R&B club, like the patch of sweat under the arms of a Baptist preacher's suit. Beyond that, he could swing like crazy. The dirty attack of a B-3 keyboard sounded like a drumset under Smith's control, and he--unlike so many B-3 players now--had Parker's harmonic bebop acrobatics down pat. You could almost feel the organ getting dizzy, never having been played like that before.

I regret not having gone to see him live. I had several chances, but--as with James Brown, Elvin Jones, Jim and Jesse McReynolds, and Tony Williams--I took him for granted. I'm going to go see McCoy Tyner before the year has passed.

If you haven't heard Smith, check out Cool Blues and Root Down. Cool Blues is a document, capturing Smith still developing his sound at a tiny, packed Small's Paradise in Manhattan in the late 1950's. It's rough around the edges, and on some tracks is propelled by a frenetic Art Blakey.

Root Down is an early 1970s album with electric bass and electric guitar that will explain--practically explain away--Medeski Martin and Wood, the Beastie Boys, and any other electric B-3 funk. Perhaps only the Meters stand up to it. If you've ever wrinkled up your nose and slowly bobbed your head to a B-3 album, this one will win your allegiance after 5 seconds.

Smith swallowed the Hammond B-3 organ whole. He so dominated the sound that no one after him has been able to create a truly individual identity on the organ without incorporating other keyboards or without being hailed as the "new Jimmy Smith." We'll miss him.