My mom’s friend Mrs. Rosenberg had a Hammond organ. It’s such a great instrument that even 9 year old me sounded good on it. I was a bad keyboard player, y’all. But that organ made me a decent one. I went to Casa Rosenberg one day to noodle on the organ and she asked me if I liked Jimmy Smith. I had never heard of him.
It was sometime in December of 1966. Later that week, Mrs. R brought me a Chrismukkah present: Christmas Cookin‘ by Jimmy Smith. I dug it and still do.
In its first release the album had a different cover and title: Christmas ’64. I’m showing the cover of Christmas Cookin’ first because it’s a better album package. What’s not to love about Santa Jimmy? It also pleases me to remember who gave me the album so many years ago. Thanks, Mrs. R.
It’s cover time:
The cover of Christmas ’64 has an abstract thing going on that I dig and the Verve ornament has, well, verve.
Here’s the whole damn album via the YouTube:
Somehow, for reasons lost in the mists of history (or the hists of mystery), I got turned on to jazz when I was about 12, and Jimmy Smith was one of my first favorites. I didn’t get those particular albums because I wasn’t really into Christmas music then or now. It always struck me as kitsch. I grew up on Irving Berlin (and Cole Porter and the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Johnny Mercer, et al), but I didn’t like Irving’s song White Christmas (or God Bless America or Easter Parade), because it was to sentimental. Let’s Face the Music and Dance is primo Irving Berlin.
Anyway, I got Jimmy’s Verve albums first and his Blue Note albums later. Favorite album covers include those for The Cat, Any Number Can Win & Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Not long after that, I got more into hard bop & post bop, Coltrane & Mingus became idols, but I still always enjoyed my first loves: Jimmy Smith, Herbie Mann, Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, et al. In those days, major record stores would have specialist experts working the floor, and the jazz expert at the 48th St. Sam Goody in Manhattan started me listening to the more difficult stuff. Ironically, I later worked for Sam Goody buying and selling guitars for 15 years.