How can you not love Jimmy Smith? I first heard him as a 14 year old and I remember thinking I had no idea what the whole thing meant, if, indeed, it meant anything. But I knew I liked it. Life was clearly a lot simpler then.
Starting with a cheap Best Of LP on Blue Note I bought in Our Price I expanded into Jimmy McGriff and Richard "Groove" Holmes. Time passed. Seven or eight years later, there was this explosion where the Beastie Boys turned into a band and Mo' Wax and Talking Loud and Dorado and Acid Jazz came along and, as I was working in a record shop, I was well placed to pick up loads of this stuff.
In fact, probably too much of it. I have about 20 Dorado 12"s in the basement. Even more Acid Jazz and Talking Loud. Every Mo' Wax release - on promo, natch - up to about number 30. Sadly, no one gives a monkeys about any of it (apart from a couple of Weatherall and DJ Shadow bits), because people only want measurable authenticity.
Well, this is about as authentic as it gets. I found the following in a warehouse-sized thrift store in an unpleasant suburb of Los Angeles. I was there to interview Beck for the NME. Shopping was more exciting than Beck. Anyway, this was about a dollar. I bought a nasty trucker's cap (it read, San Bernando Elk's Lodge) too, but I've lost that.
Here Jimmy attacks the Goldfinger Bond-theme with everything he has. For what is fundamentally a pop record made for jukeboxes, this has some impressive skronk credentials, though it never fails to swing like, if you'll forgive me, God's own weighty balls.
Nice one, Jimmy.
Jimmy Smith: Goldfinger (Part II) (Verve, 1965)
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