Groovin' at Smalls' Paradise Volume 1

Smalls' Paradise had been a big name in Harlem long before Jimmy Smith played there. Leonard Feather, in the original notes, ranks it with the Cotton Club and Connie's Inn as one of the three great Harlem show spots, and the best of them. Ed Smalls opened it on Fifth Avenue and moved it in 1926 to a basement at Seventh Avenue and 135th Street. Feather, quoting John Hammond, says it was Black-owned and turned no one away.

There was always a big show at Smalls'; everything was big but the prices.

Leonard Feather, original liner notes

By 1957 Ed Smalls had sold it, and the organ had found its way in: Marlowe Morris played a Hammond there from 1953 into 1955. Smith, from Philadelphia, had been making records for Blue Note since early 1956. This was his working trio, the same one he had recorded with at Manhattan Towers earlier in the year: Eddie McFadden on guitar and Donald Bailey on drums.

The night was Friday, November 15, 1957. Alfred Lion produced, and Rudy Van Gelder recorded it in the club.

This is the first record album ever recorded at Smalls'.

Leonard Feather, original liner notes

Feather was there that night. The log runs to 16 takes; nine came out, four on this record and five on Volume 2, BLP 1586.

Side one opens with "After Hours." Wikipedia credits it to Erskine Hawkins and Avery Parrish, and the title is Parrish's old piano feature with the Hawkins band, but Feather says the trio really makes this performance up as it goes: a blues that builds into long solos for Smith and McFadden, with Bailey easing into double time behind the guitar. Blue Note put it out on a 45. "My Funny Valentine" takes up the rest of the side; Feather passes over it, but Martin Williams, in Down Beat, singled out Smith's second solo on it for its melodic continuity.

Side two starts with Smith's own "Slightly Monkish." It is a tribute, Feather notes, to Thelonious Monk, not to Julius Monk or Monk Montgomery. "Laura" closes the record, by turns gentle and grand, with its strongest passages after the guitar solo.

The sleeve is Reid Miles's design with Francis Wolff's photography. The rest of the night's music, "Imagination," "Just Friends," "Lover Man," "Body and Soul" and a long "Indiana," came out as Volume 2. Four more tunes from the night were added when the two volumes were put together on a double CD.