Cool Blues

by

Jimmy Smith

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First of all, this is not the blues. Cool Blues is a song by Charlie Parker. This is bop oriented straight ahead Jazz. This is Jimmy Smith at the beginning. Live at Small's Paradise in Harlem, circa 1958. This is a period piece. If you want to know what live Jazz sounded like in the 50's, this is it. 24-bit remastered, the sound is real clear. I'm sure that live albums of that time were not that great with the equipment they had. So this is a miraculous digital treat. Four songs are over 11 minutes long. A Night In Tunisia is 18 minutes alone. Art Blakey driving on drums for half the disc. Lou Donaldson on Alto. Tina Brooks, who I'd never heard of on Tenor. The liner notes say this is one of the rare appearances of this person, so the disc is a historical record of his playing, and he plays very well here. Organ, Tenor, Alto, Guitar, Drums. Five uptempo and 2 ballads. Jimmy is phenomenal, of course, and the rest are real pros. Everyone stretches out and plays. Smith sits back on most of the songs and lets the other guys play, which surprised me and was interesting. Of course, he gets his licks in plenty. Great Jazz. 24-bit digital. 72 minutes of music. Of course, buy this disc. Who wouldn't? Nothing else to say. It's that great.