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Johnny "Hammond" Smith

Johnny "Hammond" Smith was part of the golden age of jazz organ that flourished for about 15 years, beginning in the mid-1950s. His own record label alone, Prestige, boasted such top organists as Shirley Scott, Brother Jack McDuff, Don Patterson, and Charles Earland. And looming over the entire crowded field of B-3 pilots was Jimmy Smith (no relation). Born John Robert Smith in Louisville, Kentucky, December 16, 1933, he has a mildly musical background: “My mother sang in the choir, my sister and others in the family were musical, but I’m the only one who became a professional.” “My influences were Charlie Parker, Dizzy, Bud Powell, Art Tatum, all the people who were really happening in the mid-1940s. I guess you could say I made my professional debut at 15. I had a buddy who also played piano, and we’d both slip into a little club down the street and take turns playing for whatever they’d put in the kitty.” Smith was 18 when he left Louisville. For a while, he lived in Cleveland, playing with groups led by saxophonist Jimmy Hinsley and guitarist Willie Lewis.Around the time he came of age, his ears were captivated by the sound of Wild Bill Davis, who had just begun to show the possibilities of transferring modern jazz sounds to the electric organ. Inspired by Davis, and also to some extent by Bill Doggett, Johnny gradually made the changeover from piano to organ himself. “I was the first jazz organist in Cleveland, or to put it another way, the first jazz musician in Cleveland even to own an organ. I began working around in small combos.Believe it or not, I was playing from the very start pretty much the way I’m playing now. I played single lines then, then built up to shout out-choruses with big chords and so forth, just the way I do today. The only difference at first was that I hadn’t turned the vibrato off the organ, whereas Jimmy Smith had. Later, around 1957, I began turning it off.” Shortly after Hammond’s acquisition of an organ, Wild Bill Davis left the Chris Columbus group in which he had been working. Johnny got the job with Columbus and went almost immediately to New York. From that point on, he shuttled between New York and Cleveland as alternate homes. In 1958, he had his first opportunity to extend his popularity through records.

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252
Album Review

Johnny "Hammond" Smith: Opus de Funk

Read "Opus de Funk" reviewed by David Rickert


Johnny “Hammond" Smith will always be tagged as the other Smith on the B-3, grouped together with a host of other organists who never managed to break free from the club circuit into the realm of true infamy. However, Smith's recordings are slowly making their way back into print via generous two-fer CDs from Prestige, giving us an opportunity to reassess the career of an artist stuck in the minor leagues.

At the time that the two sessions ...

133
Album Review

Johnny "Hammond" Smith: Good 'Nuff

Read "Good 'Nuff" reviewed by David Rickert


Good Nuff is a perfect title for a Johnny Smith record, given that it aptly describes most of his records. Johnny “Hammond” Smith never earned the acclaim of the other organist who bears his last name, and for good reason; he simply isn’t as talented or inventive as the one who carved out several dynamic sessions for Blue Note. Often resorting to a template of well-worn grooves and clichés, Smith is fortunate enough on the first of the two sessions ...

118
Album Review

Johnny Hammond: Breakout

Read "Breakout" reviewed by Jim Santella


The CTI jazz catalog holds many surprises. This one features a strong 8-piece band led by organist Johnny Hammond (1933-1997), who was known earlier as Johnny “Hammond" Smith. Recorded in 1971, the album emphasized swinging mood music with a flair for popular sounds. It marked a turning point in the career of Grover Washington, Jr. He, Hank Crawford and Eric Gale are all over the place, alongside Hammond's B-3. It’s a party. A previously unissued track, recorded shortly after the ...

110
Album Review

Johnny Hammond: Breakout

Read "Breakout" reviewed by David Rickert


A prime example of the CTI label’s indulgence in the commercial possibilities of jazz, Breakout gave Johnny Hammond the opportunity to escape from the long shadow cast by Jimmy Smith. Sticking with the Hammond B-3, by this time a bit old-fashioned as many had become enchanted with the Fender Rhodes, Hammond and his band contribute an album’s worth of soul jazz workouts. By this time, rock tunes had become the new would-be standards and Hammond proves that such unlikely candidates ...

240
Album Review

Johnny "Hammond" Smith: Open House

Read "Open House" reviewed by David Rickert


The best organ jazz records fuse elements of gospel, blues, and soul together with the atmosphere of a jam session, as if a bunch of friends got together one night to toss a few back and play some tunes. Johnny “Hammond" Smith certainly has the right idea on the first of the sessions on this two-fer reissue; the instrumentation approximates that of Jimmy Smith's classic “The Sermon" but the music burns at a slightly lower temperature. Whereas Jimmy Smith punctuates ...

195
Album Review

Johnny "Hammond" Smith: The Soulful Blues

Read "The Soulful Blues" reviewed by Derek Taylor


Smith was one of many in a long line of second tier Soul Jazz organists that flourished during the instrument’s stratospheric ascendancy during the 1960s. Appropriately titled, this disc delves generously into two sides of Smith’s oeuvre. The first session focuses prominently on Soul and R&B hits from the era touching on the songbooks of Ben E. King and others. While the material isn’t the most constructive to imaginative improvisation the solid crew of sidemen on hand enables Smith to ...

139
Album Review

Johnny "Hammond" Smith: Soul Flowers

Read "Soul Flowers" reviewed by Derek Taylor


P>Considering the sometimes-swaggering braggadocio of the soul jazz scene any B-3 player audacious enough to attach the instrument to his name was begging for a fracas from his peers. Fortunately for Smith he had several decades of experience at the organ under his belt when he cut this pair of sessions and the requisite chops to hold his own against most dissenters. Adding to his advantage was the large group of veteran session players assembled for the dates, particularly the ...

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Recording

Backgrounder: Johnny Hammond - Breakout

Backgrounder: Johnny Hammond  - Breakout

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

As Johnny “Hammond" Smith became increasingly popular, he added his middle nickname to avoid being confused with guitarist Johnny Smith and organ great Jimmy Smith. He began recording as leader in 1959 and was a sideman throughout the 1960s. In 1971, Creed Taylor signed him to Kudu Records, his soul-flavored subsidiary of CTI. Smith's album Breakout (1971) was the first album released on the new label. The LP is notable for its terrific mix of tracks and the stellar musicians ...

Video / DVD

Johnny "H" Smith: Open House

Johnny "H" Smith: Open House

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Organist Johnny “Hammond" Smith was relentlessly tasty. Whenever I dig into one of his albums, my feet can't stop moving. Hi grooves and chord voicings were intoxicating. One of his finest albums from the first track to the last was Open House. Recorded for Riverside in 1963, the album featured Thad Jones (cnt,tp); Seldon Powell (ts,fl); Johnny “Hammond" Smith (org); Eddie McFadden (g); Bob Cranshaw (b); Leo Stevens (d) and Ray Barretto (cga). Smith also was a wonderful composer. He ...

1

Interview

Mrs. Johnny "Hammond" Smith

Mrs. Johnny "Hammond" Smith

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

It's unclear who gave Johnny “Hammond" Smith his middle name. In all likelihood, it was Smith himself, to distinguish himself from Johnny Smith, the well-known jazz guitarist. “Hammond" Smith was born in Louisville, Ky., in 1933 and began recording on the organ in the late 1950s just after working as singer Nancy Wilson's early club accompanist. After recording steadily for Prestige as a sideman and leader during the 1960s, Smith signed with Creed Taylor's Kudu Records in the early 1970s. ...

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Recording

Johnny "H" Smith: Opus de Funk

Johnny "H" Smith: Opus de Funk

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Organist Johnny “Hammond" Smith isn't as well known todayas organists like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott, Don Patterson and Charles Earland. I'm not sure why. Perhaps his name was too close to Johnny Smith's (the guitarist) and John Hammond's (the producer). Nevertheless, Smith was a high-energy player with enormous soul power and restraint. His recording career roughly divides into two parts—his jazz-soul sessions for Riverside and Prestige in the '60s and his jazz-funk CTI records of the '70s for ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Opus de Funk

Prestige Records
2004

buy

Good 'Nuff

Fantasy Jazz
2003

buy

Breakout

CTI Records
2002

buy

Open House

Fantasy Jazz
2001

buy

Soul Flowers

Prestige Records
2000

buy

The Soulful Blues

Prestige Records
2000

buy

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