The definitive jazz Hammond organ sound of Jimmy Smith normally discovered its dwelling on a collection of seminal albums, to not point out some notable session appearances with Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson and others. However on a dozen events between 1962 and 1968, the good instrumentalist from Norristown, Pennsylvania discovered his manner into the Billboard Sizzling 100. That’s the place he was in September 1962 with a tune from the Oscar Hammerstein & Jerome Kern musical Present Boat.
In June of that yr, Smith climbed to his highest-ever rating on that chart with the title quantity from the Laurence Harvey-Jane Fonda movie Stroll On The Wild Aspect. After that launch, credited to Jimmy Smith and the Large Band, reached No.21, Verve swiftly adopted up along with his 45rpm recording of “Ol’ Man River.” It was singularly one of many grooviest variations of the already venerable tune, first heard within the 1927 musical model of Present Boat.
A success between the wars
The tune was a bestseller in 1928 for Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra, in a rendition with vocals by Bing Crosby and cornet by Bix Beiderbecke. Al Jolson, Paul Robeson, and the Revelers have been all well-liked with their discs of it that very same yr. Smith’s studying was on his memorable first album for Verve, Bashin’, The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith, which had come out in Could 1962.
His single entered the US chart at No.100 on September 1, then fell to No.105 within the journal’s “Bubbling Under” part. It re-entered the official countdown at No.99 on September 15. Per week later, it was nowhere to be seen, and its unusual chart sample continued when it re-entered the Sizzling 100 at an apparently stronger No.82 – earlier than disappearing once more for good.
Smith returned to the chart the next spring with one among his signature items, “Hobo Flats.” He by no means once more made the highest half of the 100, though he got here as shut as could possibly be in 1966, when his model of “Got My Mojo Workin’” peaked at No.51.
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