Album Reviews

This "wind-em-up-and let-'em-play" set from September of 1963 has Jimmy Smith playing thick, juicy Hammond B-3 and Wes Montgomery blocking citrus-y chords and cool runs up and down the fretboard backed by brash, horn-drenched Oliver Nelson arrangements.

This was cool, commercial, slick mid-sixties session jazz and little more than that, but so what? Let loose, Jimmy and Wes swagger and comp through the tunes with energetic abandon. Hearing these two pros trading joyous licks is a blast.

Nelson backs them with a big grouping of brass and reeds, including Clark Terry, Phil Woods and enough studio cats to fill an animal shelter.

They cover warhorses like "Down By The Riverside," "Night Train," and "Baby It's Cold Outside," (complete with jingle bells), and despite their familiarity, they go down pleasurably.

Only towards the end does Nelson allow the pleasingly caustic arrangements to go from a boil to a low simmer.

One tune, the oddly named "13 (Death March)", with its blend of heat and cool, accompanied by Ray Barretto's percussion, is probably the set's artistic highlight and the one piece that stands out and up to the withering effects of time.

Otherwise this is an interesting period piece that effectively captures the post cool penthouse vibe of the mid-sixties.

It's music no one makes today both because few can play like these guys and because it doesn't fit into any current musical gameplan.

The recording is pure mid '60's Rudy Van G. for better and for worse, though the probably four track session is mixed in a compartmentalized manor, with Wes and Jimmy stuck together center stage, the drum kit hard-right and the brass hard left.

Back then we thought it was cool "stereo." Today we consider it dated, multi-track mono, but the mix, like the music, is of the time and what a time it was!