A New Sound, A New Star Volume 1

Jimmy Smith grew up in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and started on piano, taught by his father. Babs Gonzales, the singer who wrote the original notes, tells how Smith heard Wild Bill Davis in 1953 and turned to the organ, playing piano at night and practising the Hammond by day. He toured with Don Gardner's rhythm and blues group in 1954, found the work too commercial, and went out on his own the next year. Gonzales caught him at a club in Atlantic City, taking "Georgia Brown" for 40 choruses without repeating himself. Smith was about 30. This was his first record.

He is probably the first organist who plays the instrument with a modern conception and he has developed a sound all his own.

Babs Gonzales, original liner notes

The date was Saturday, February 18, 1956, at Rudy Van Gelder's in Hackensack, with Alfred Lion producing. It was a trio. Thornel Schwartz played guitar; Gonzales calls him and Smith twins on the bandstand. Bay Perry, brother of the saxophonist Ray Perry, played drums for this one date. Nine tunes made the record. A tenth, Dizzy Gillespie's "The Champ," was tried and set aside.

Side one opens with "The Way You Look Tonight" and Smith's own "You Get 'Cha," then "Midnight Sun" and "Lady Be Good." Side two starts with "The High and the Mighty," the film theme, which Nat Hentoff in Down Beat picked out as the ballad with real jazz in it. Horace Silver's "The Preacher" is where Hentoff heard Smith's drive at its strongest. The record closes with "Tenderly" and "Joy." Billboard counted "Joy" as a Smith original; Wikipedia credits it to Bach.

Hentoff was not fully won over. He gave the record three and a half stars, admitted he disliked the sound of the electric organ, and found Smith piling phrase on phrase instead of building a line. Billboard and Cash Box were warmer, and Billboard called him one of the most advanced modern organists around.

The sleeve is Reid Miles's design with a photograph by Francis Wolff, as Wikipedia credits it.

Five weeks later Smith was back at Van Gelder's with a new drummer, and "The Champ" went first on Volume 2. By August Blue Note was taping him live at Club Baby Grand.