House Party – Jimmy Smith on the B3, Jazz Royalty and a Connection to Today
For most of my life, the three Jimmy Smith albums that traveled with me were Jimmy & Wes: The Dynamic Duo, The Further Adventures of Jimmy & Wes, and Jimmy Smith’s Greatest Hits. But once I moved past the Raffi and Sharon, Lois & Bram years (1979–1993, while raising four kids born between 1979 and 1990!), I started collecting more. What began with a few CDs has grown—thanks to Goodwill digging and trips to Princeton Record Exchange—into a modest but beloved Jimmy Smith vinyl collection. And now House Party has become a standout favorite, not only for the groove but also for the incredible jazz talent featured on it.
My Jimmy Smith Album Collection (So Far)
House Party (1957) – Blue Note
Midnight Special (1961)
Bashin’ The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith (1962)
Live at the Village Gate (1963)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1964)
Got My Mojo Working (1966)
Jimmy & Wes: The Dynamic Duo (1966)
Peter and the Wolf (1966)
Hoochie Coochee Man (1967)
Livin’ It Up! (1968)
The Further Adventures of Jimmy & Wes (1969)
Live in Concert – Jimmy Smith
Jimmy Smith’s Greatest Hits
Don Gardner Trio – Featuring Jimmy Smith
Tonight’s Soundtrack: Jimmy Smith:House Party
This isn’t just the first album alphabetically in the list—House Party is a showcase of incredible jazz players and solid grooves. Just look at this guest lineup:
Lee Morgan – trumpet
Curtis Fuller – trombone
Lou Donaldson – alto sax
George Coleman – alto sax
Tina Brooks – tenor sax
Kenny Burrell – guitar
Eddie McFadden – guitar
Art Blakey – drums
Donald Bailey – drums
If you’re not a jazz listener, let me assure you—this is jazz royalty. These players brought depth, swing, and soul to every note, and House Party is a prime example of timeless jazz that grooves like no other.
Track Listing and Lineups
Side One: “Au Privave” / “Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be)” Side Two: “Just Friends” / “Blues After All”
“Au Privave”
Jimmy Smith (organ), Lee Morgan (trumpet), Lou Donaldson (alto), Tina Brooks (tenor), Kenny Burrell (guitar), Art Blakey (drums)
“Au Privave” is a refined piece of indisputable bop mastery as Smith commands the combo through an incendiary and driving rendition that grooves unforced flair and organic charisma… Even at 16-plus minutes, the pace and timbre of the performance begs for more. — AllMusic
“Lover Man”
Jimmy Smith, Lee Morgan, Lou Donaldson, Eddie McFadden (guitar), Donald Bailey (drums)
“Lover Man” is splendid and sincere as Donaldson drives right to the heart, unreeling stunningly lyrical leads behind Smith’s distinguished progressions. — AllMusic
“Just Friends”
Jimmy Smith, Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller (trombone), George Coleman (alto), Eddie McFadden, Donald Bailey
“Just Friends” is a true gem… Each musician is given room to stretch and reveal his identity as both an ensemble player and soloist. — AllMusic
“Blues After All”
Jimmy Smith, Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, George Coleman, Kenny Burrell, Donald Bailey
“Blues After All” is a soulful outing that offers arguably the most sublime and understated bop on the album. — AllMusic
From 1957 to Today: House Party Meets Big G
One of the things that jumped out at me on House Party was George Coleman’s presence on two tracks. Truth be told, I hadn’t explored his work much—until recently. I’d just heard him blow sax alongside his son, George Jr., on a new album called Working Out with Big G by organist Brian Charette—who happens to be one of today’s finest Hammond B3 players.
What really blew me away? That modern quartet—Brian Charette (organ), George Coleman (sax), Ed Cherry (guitar), and George Coleman Jr. (drums)—feels like a spiritual echo of House Party’s lineup. It’s like the legacy continues, recharged and reimagined for a new era.
Final Thoughts
House Party is going to be one of my go-to jazz albums for a long time to come. If you’ve got a turntable or even just Spotify, I highly recommend diving in—and then checking out Working Out with Big G to hear how that soul-jazz legacy lives on.
For now, I’m spinning both albums and smiling at how full-circle jazz can be..
Here’s “Blues After All” from House Party And tow tracks from Working Out with Big G from Brian Charette,,,
So the other day I was watching an Instagram post from a young woman. She was listening to songs from her father’s album collection. He had resently passed away.. Now whether or not that’s true or how long ago that was, I don’t know.
Anyway. it started me thinking about all the new albums I’ve found at Goodwill and the Princeton Record Exchange over the last year and how I haven’t been listening to them!Then I read a post somewhere about collectors who rotate through their albums on a regular basis.
As a result, I’ve created a 30 day challenge for me to randomly listen to at least one album a day for my newest purchases. I have most of those albums in crates grouped by genre, with the albums in alphabetical order. So I picked a crate and then used a random number generator to pick the album. The number was 26 and the album was Home from Si Khan.
I must admit I don’t know mush about Si Khan. I always heard his music on The Gene Shay show in Philly. I liked what I heard but never sought out his music. The probably may be that the majority of his music was release after 1980. Which means it coincided with my parenting years!
However, from what I read about Si at AllMusic I should have….
Discovering Si Kahn
The political balladry of Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton, and Phil Ochs is reflected in the songs of North Carolina-based singer/songwriter Si Kahn. Although his love songs are nearly as effective, Kahn’s greatest strides have come with his lyrical looks at the unemployed, the racially abused, the sexually harassed, and the working-class oppressed. Kahn’s songs, including “Go to Work on Monday” and “Aragon Mill,” have become labor union anthems.
Si Kahn (born April 23, 1944) and has released 21 albums over the course of his career.
Si Khan is about more than just music….
Kahn’s prolific output includes more than music and songs. He has written three plays including, Mother Jones, based on the life of the early union organizer, which featured Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers in the title role when produced in the early ’90s. Kahn has also authored two books on political organizing: How People Get Power and Organizing.
Recorded during a 1993 concert, “In My Heart: Live in Holland” celebrated the 20th anniversary of Kahn’s first album and featured several of his best-known tunes. Profits from Kahn’s concerts continue to be donated to Grassroots Leadership, a political organization he founded in the mid-’70s.
About Grassroots Leadership
Grassroots Leadership founder Si Kahn gothis start as a young activist and organizer in the Southern Civil Rights Movement as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Si founded Grassroots Leadership in 1980 as a resource and training center for social justice organization building. Initially based in North Carolina, Grassroots Leadership worked throughout the South to help build progressive, multi-racial organizations to build power and create just organizations. Grassroots Leadership was one of the few organizations in the 1980s and 1990s to articulate in the board bylaws that no less than half of the board would be women and no less than half would be People of Color. Read More
My Bottom Line
The bottom line is I need to listen to the other Si Khan albums I bought and seek out more albums! So check out his music and his grassroots activism!
Links for the Further Exploration of the Music and More of Si Khan
So once again I must confess to not wrting many new posts. One of my excuses is I am still trying to fully recover from the ankle sprain that occurred on my May 28th run! In order to facilitate that recovery, for the last several weeks I’ve been going to Physical Theraphy twice a week. Additionally, I’ve been working more at Target.Finally, last week in an attempt to get myself to write more I bought a new laptop.
Only I shopped price and bought an HP Chromebook. And while it works fine for using the Internet, which means it works well for most of my uses. It doesn’t play nicely with my iTunes music library. Now because not all of my music was recorded by iTunes and moved right into iTunes my albums and recording are located in various folders on various storage devices! So what I’ve beem doing is relocating them to devices where I know what I have and where they are located! I actually bought a 256 GB microSD card that I think will hold my whole library.
In the midst of all this my wife did make a trip to the NJ State Archives in Trenton on Wednesday of this week, That means that I get to head further north and visit The Princetion Record Exchange! Now because I’m still dont know how to rip CDs using the Chromebook, I only bought vinyl albums, which is actually what I wanted to buy anyway.
My LP Haul from The Princeton Record Exchange
Jazz
Master of the Art – Woody Shaw
I confess I didn’t know anything about Woody Shaw until I started to listen to more jazz in the middle 2010s. I only gave this album a quick listen but I likes what I heard…..from AllMusic
Master of the Art is the studio companion to the album Night Music, also reissued on Wounded Bird records from the original Elektra Musician masters, with the same band as on the live date, but with completely different songs and a short interview from the trumpeter. At a time when Shaw was one of the most consistently brilliant trumpeter’s of the modern era, this effort did nothing to hurt that estimable reputation.
Vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and trombonist Steve Turre being on the front line made for an arresting sound, while the emerging pianist Mulgrew Miller was asserting himself as a major force, with drummer Stafford James and drummer Tony Reedus sounding like they had worked together for decades Read more at AllMusic
High Energy – Freddie Hubbard
Now Freddie Hubbard is someone I have know for longer and at least one cassette tape is in my collection. Again after a listen last night I liked what I heard.. The first time I heard Ernie Watts he was playing with John Mayall in the early 1970 from AllMusic….
One of Freddie Hubbard’s few decent efforts during his very commercial period with Columbia, this LP found his quintet (with tenor-saxophonist Junior Cook and keyboardist George Cables) joined by a small orchestra and a string section on a set of potentially dismal material….The leader/trumpeter is in good form and there is solo space given to Ernie Watts (on bass flute, soprano and flute) and tenorman Pete Christlieb…. Read More at AllMusic
Rough House Blues – Lou Donaldson
Like Woody Shaw I didnt know a lot about Lou Donaldson until several years ago, I really like hus album Alligator Bogaloo. I listened to this album as I was writing this post and I think I may like it the most of any of the albums I bought ! While AllMusic gave the album thee stars they didn’t have much to say about it…..
Best and most ambitious of mid-60s Argo albums. Oliver Nelson supplied the arrangements for this nine-piece band.
I am familiar with the work of Oliver Nelson through his work with Wes Montgomery in the 1960s. You cant go wrong iif he’s doing the arranging!
The Milt Jackson Big 4 at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1975 – Milt Jackson, Oscar Peterson, Niels Pederson and Mickey Roker.
Sadly, I discovered that I already have this album in my music library. But I say you can never have too much Milt Jackson….the presence of Oscar Peterson on the album made it a no-brainer when I saw it, From AllMusic,,,,,
This is the only album of my haul that got 4 stars from AllMusic,,,,,,
Vibraphonist Milt Jackson teams up with pianist Oscar Peterson, bassist Niels Pedersen and drummer Mickey Roker for this particularly appealing set. There are many exciting performances (particularly Blue Mitchell’s “Funji Mama,” “Speed Ball” and “Mack the Knife”) and some emotional ballad statements (“Everything Must Change” and “Like Someone like Love”). Bags and O.P. always bring out the best in each other and this well-conceived set is no exception. Read More at AllMusic
Folk
Today is the Highway – Eric Andersen
I bought my first Eric Andersen album Blue River in the early 1970s when it came out. I know that I went out and bought some of his prior albums quickly thereafter, However, I never bought this one. He’s had a strange career he spent most of the later 70s through the 1980s in Europe, He reemerged in 1989 with a new album, Ghosts Upon the Road. Since 1998 he’s been very active producing a numnber of outstanding albums. From AllMusic
Andersen’s debut album presented him playing in a folkie style that was just starting to become passé upon its release in 1965. It’s an inoffensive set of originals (except for a cover of “Baby Please Don’t Go”) in the early-’60s Greenwich Village style, accompanied only by his own guitar and harmonica (and, on two songs, by Debby Green on second guitar). Read More at AllMusic
Here‘s a baker‘s dozen playlist with random tracks for each album with the exception of The Milt Jackson Big 4…. I did include as the thirteenth track …. „On Green Dolphin Street“ by Milt and Oscar!
