Along with bagpipes and accordions, the organ belongs to that small group of wind instruments in which the air is pumped, not blown. There have been a few jazz accordionists, and Paul Horn used bagpipes in one of his groups, but only the organ has achieved permanent status in jazz. The pipe organ has been around for millennia, and in the nineteenth century the harmonica-like parlor harmonium, using reeds, not pipes, brought hymn tunes (and blues chords) into American homes and schools. Until the nineteen fifties, though, the organ was heard mainly in churches, theaters, and skating rinks. Pipe organs aren't portable, and the delay between depressing the keys and hearing the notes makes improvisation very difficult. One of the first jazzmen to play the pipe organ was Fats Waller, to accompany silent movies. Count Basie learned to play it at Waller's feet-- literally-- he worked the foot pedals. Waller recorded on organ fairly often, but the results were closer to theater-style organ than piano jazz.
An early attempt to replace organ pipes with electronics was the 200-ton "telharmonium" of 1904, but it was the 1934 invention of Laurens Hammond that made the instrument available in far more venues. Hammond wasn't a musician, but a mechanical engineer. While working for an automobile company in Detroit, he invented a soundless wind-up clock. Then, in 1928, he developed an electric motor revolving in phase with alternating current the basis for the electric clock and founded the Hammond Clock Company. The phonograph gave him the idea of synthesizing music electronically, and in less than a year, using his synchronous motor, he developed the instrument that made his name famous. The Hammond Clock Company became the Hammond Organ Company. Following World War Two, the Hammond organ appeared in cocktail lounges throughout the country. Most of the music was to the right of the middle-of-the-road-- artists like The Three Suns and Ethel Smith had considerable popular success with their bouncy numbers.
Milt Buckner was the first recognized jazz organist. He'd been Lionel Hampton's pianist through the forties, and in 1949, Hampton added Doug Duke on organ. When Duke left the band in 1950, Hamp asked Buckner to double on organ, and in 1952, Buckner struck out on his own. His style wasn't far from his "locked-hands" piano technique (the melody line played in block chords using both hands), but it shows hints of the more freewheeling organ jazz to come. Pianist-composer-arranger Wild Bill Davis switched to organ shortly thereafter, working regularly at an Atlantic City lounge.
The organ made it into the rhythm and blues field at about the same time-- Louis Jordan's pianist Bill Doggett, inspired by Davis, switched to organ in 1951, and nicely backed Ella Fitzgerald on her Decca singles Air Mail Special, Smooth Sailing, and Rough Riding. One of the rare working big bands to use an organ in the 'fifties was Woody Herman's Third Herd-- Nat Pierce had a gadget called an Organo that could be attached to whatever piano was handy.
The organ and the tenor sax made a felicitous combination.
A precursor to the many such pairings in the 'fifties was the Lester Young
1939 record session with Glenn Hardman and his Hammond Five. Hardman played
more like a merry-go-round calliope than a jazzman, but the session is
remembered because of Lester's participation and for one of Hardman's titles:
Upright Organ Blues. Illinois Jaquet liked organ backing,
and used it on several of his 'fifties records for Norman Granz, played
by Wild Bill Davis, Hank Jones, and Count Basie. On one record session,
Paul Quinichette had Basie on organ; on another, he backed Billie Holiday
with Oscar Peterson at the Hammond. And in the early 'sixties, alto saxophonist
Johnny Hodges recorded frequently for Verve and Victor with Wild Bill Davis.
Enter Jimmy Smith
Several factors conjoined to make Jimmy Smith the undisputed leader among jazz organists, and to do so just a few years after jazz found the instrument. Among them, of course, is his talent. James Oscar Smith was born December 8, 1925 in Norristown, Pennsylvania. After piano studies with his parents, he continued with formal study in Philadelphia. His primary influences were pianists Bud Powell and Horace Silver, but after hearing Wild Bill Davis, perhaps in nearby Atlantic City, he switched to organ. In 1955-56, he was playing and recording with Don Gardner's little blues band in Philadelphia when Freddie Redd heard him and praised him to Ira Gitler and Blue Note's Alfred Lion. The label offered a perfect showcase for Smith, since after a few well-received trio lps, Lion began recording him with other kindred spirits in the Blue Note family, including Art Blakey, Lou Donaldson, Lee Morgan, and others at home with Silver's captivating mixture of bop, blues, and gospel. Evidence that Smith had arrived is that in his six years with the label, Blue Note issued more than twenty lps under his leadership. On these sides, there is nothing of the lounge Hammond or the pipe organ in Smith's playing, but a unique blend of post-bop piano and saxophone-- and he swings.
Early in 1962, Smith moved to Verve and a new direction--
as featured soloist with a big band. Bashin', his debut on the label,
was the first of several collaborations with composer-arranger Oliver
Nelson. A few years younger than Smith, Nelson began on piano, then switched
to alto and tenor sax. He played professionally before the war, but after
the service earned degrees in theory and composition. He began recording
(on Prestige) as a leader in 1959, and his 1961 Impulse album Blues
and the Abstract Truth rivals the Miles Davis Nonet sides in reputation
and influence. In great demand from then on, he composed and recorded prolifically
until a 1975 heart attack ended his life at age forty-three. Working
with an organist was not a novelty for Nelson-- in his sideman days he
had played saxophone with Wild Bill Davis, and on one of his Prestige albums
he was joined by Johnny "Hammond" Smith.
Bashin'
Oliver Nelson was a wise choice for Jimmy Smith's big band debut he
provides a variety of settings to frame Smith's solos. Walk on the Wild
Side is Elmer Bernstein's title music for the justly forgotten 1962
film loosely based on Nelson Algren's 1956 novel. Bernstein's score, which
was nominated for an Academy Award, resembled his earlier work with Shorty
Rogers for The Wild One and The Man with the Golden Arm. It
also owes something to Alex North's innovative 1951 score for A Streetcar
Named Desire, which was, like A Walk on the Wild Side, set in
New Orleans. Nelson's version replaces Bernstein's strings with nicely
voiced reeds and finds more rhythmic pulse than the original soundtrack,
perfectly framing Smith's contribution.
The rhythmic pattern of Jerome Kern's Ol' Man River is the nineteenth
century banjo tune. In Show Boat, the chorus introduced the song
in minstrel show tempo, but for its primary appearance as the bass-baritone
solo that became a classic for Paul Robeson, Kern and Hammerstein slowed
it to its familiar form. The jazz possibilities in the 1927 song
were immediately recognized by Bix Beiderbecke, who recorded an up-tempo
version. Here, Nelson finds a gospel-blues quality in the piece.
In a Mellow Tone is the familiar Ellington take on Rose Room, here translated by Nelson into Basie's "New Testament" style. Barry Galbraith plays a Freddie Green rhythm guitar, and Smith clearly finds the setting congenial, picking up some of Basie's keyboard sound.
The call-and-response Nelson original, Step Right Up, is in a spiritual mode he also used in his Blues and the Abstract Truth album.
Donald Bailey joined the Jimmy Smith Trio near the beginning,
in 1956, and Quentin Warren had been in the group for a couple of years
when the trio sides on Bashin' were recorded, so it is no surprise
that they mesh easily with Smith. The slow blues numbers offer nice contrast
to the excitement of the big band tracks, and Warren's solos beautifully
complement Smith's. Johnny Mercer's I'm an Old Cowhand lopes along
in the same reflective mood.
Since the sixties
The versatility of the keyboard synthesizer has eclipsed
the Hammond organ in recent years, especially in rock-oriented fusion groups,
and given the ever-increasing ability of electronics to imitate acoustic
instruments of all kinds, the Hammond organ as such may fade. But
Jimmy Smith, now in his seventies, is still here and still playing organ.
And once again, he's recording for Verve.
Art Hilgart
Contributor, The Journal of the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors.
Producer, Broadway Revisited on public radio.