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Cool Blues
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front cover | side a | 1 2 |
Groovin' At Smalls Dark Eyes11:24
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back cover | side b | 1 2 |
Cool Blues11:00 A Night In Tunisia * |
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label a | recording dates studio label |
07/04/58 Blue Note |
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PERSONNEL |
organ |
Jimmy Smith |
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| saxophone |
Lou Donaldson Tina Brooks |
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| guitar |
Eddie McFadden |
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| drums |
Art BlakDonald Bailey * |
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| TECH | producer |
Alfred Lion | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| label b | engineer |
Rudy Van Gelder | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| REISSUES | |
label | year | cat no. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Blue Note | 04/02/02 | 5355872 | RVG edition: with extra tracks; Small's Minor Once In A While |
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| REVIEW |
This might just be the quintessential
Blue Note album - the best ever if you will. Look at that line-up. Two of
the greatest names in music - Jimmy Smith and Art Blakey, paired up with
the hugely underrated talent of Tina Brooks on tenor, and Lou Donaldson
when he was still worth a listen. Eddie McFadden, a regular name on Jimmy
Smith recordings of this era, is present also and rounds out the band for
this exciting live set. Amazingly, despite the quality of the music within, this album wasn't released at the time - it had to wait until 1980 for a release (as Blue Note LT-1054). Reproduced below is the new sleeve, at least one aspect of the album that has been improved with the current issue (as part of Blue Note's 'RVG Edition' series). Also improved for the reissue is the sound - Rudy Van Gelder has done a stunning remastering job, tidying up some of the pitching problems of the 1980 release to create a sound that puts the listener right in the heart of Small's Paradise on that April night, 1958. One thing the 1980 issue did get right was its tracklisting - in those pre-CD days, we were more limited in album length, so only 'Dark Eyes', 'Groovin' At Smalls', 'Cool Blues' and 'A Night In Tunisia' were included. These remain the key tracks on the expanded edition - although it's interesting to hear the trio playing alone on the final two tracks (with 'Small's Minor' being particularly special owing to Jimmy's amazing soloing - he never played a better solo), without the horns something is missing. The first 4 tracks really are where it's at. Blues with a funkiness unmatched anywhere else in Smith's Blue Note catalogue, accompanied by some of the best hard bop tenor playing there has ever been. It doesn't get any better than this. What's more, unusually for a Smith record of this period, his organ sounds right on the money - none of the roller rink/seaside wurlitzer vibrato that gave a schmaltzy feel to much of his Blue Note output. |
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This review can also be found here. |
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