Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Jimmy Smith

Jimmy Smith At The Organ

c. 1962-1966 · Blue Note BLP 1551 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Blue Note
Catalogue number	BLP 1551
Year	c. 1962-1966
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Hard Bop / Soul Jazz (organ combo)
Producer	Alfred Lion
Musicians	Jimmy Smith (organ), Lou Donaldson (alto sax), Kenny Burrell (guitar), Art Blakey (drums)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  BN-LP-1551-A EAR RVG
Side B:  BN-LP-1551-B EAR RVG

Condition

Cover: VG+
Vinyl: VG+

Variant chronology

1957 - deep-groove label, "47 West 63rd, New York 23" address, RVG and Plastylite ear in the deadwax
1958-59 - deep-groove label, "47 West 63rd, NYC" address (no zip, no circle-R)
1962-1966 - flat (non deep-groove) label reading "Blue Note Records Inc. New York USA", RVG and Plastylite ear/P in the deadwax <- this copy
1984 - Japanese Blue Note reissue, BLP-1551

This Pressing

Flat "New York, USA" address label, RVG and Plastylite ear/P in the deadwax - a later Blue Note pressing (c. 1962-66), not the deep-groove "47 West 63rd" first issue.

The Album

Recorded at Manhattan Towers in New York over two February 1957 sessions, this album captured Jimmy Smith at the peak of the creative surge that followed his sensational 1956 arrival on the New York jazz scene, where his amplified Hammond B-3 attack had stunned musicians and critics who had never heard the organ played with such speed, harmonic sophistication and blues feeling. Smith is joined here by altoist Lou Donaldson, guitarist Kenny Burrell and drummer Art Blakey, a quartet that lets him alternate between simmering blues ("All Day Long," a Burrell original) and lyrical readings of standards ("Summertime," "There's A Small Hotel") and bebop repertoire (Charlie Parker's "Yardbird Suite"). The February sessions were prolific enough to fill two companion Blue Note volumes, of which this is the first, and together they helped codify the organ-guitar-drums trio format that would define soul jazz for the next decade. Smith's playing throughout is at once percussive and singing, driving hard on the uptempo material while shaping the ballads with an almost vocal phrasing that made the instrument sound utterly modern rather than the churchy relic it had been in jazz before him. The record was received by contemporary critics as further proof that Smith had single-handedly reinvented the jazz organ, and it remains one of the foundational documents of his early Blue Note period, cited by generations of organists as a starting point for the instrument's vocabulary in jazz.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Summertime (Gershwin)
2. There's A Small Hotel (Rodgers-Hart)

Side 2

1. All Day Long (Burrell)
2. Yardbird Suite (Parker)

The Label

The label on this copy is white with a blue rim, one Blue Note logo (no "eye" device), reading "BLUE NOTE RECORDS INC · NEW YORK USA" with no street address and no deep-groove ring. That address-only, no-street text is the label state Blue Note used once it dropped the printed "47 West 63rd" street address, a state collectors place in the early-1960s reissue window rather than the 1957 first-issue run, which carried the full "47 West 63rd, New York 23" or later "47 West 63rd, NYC" text. The matching jacket back-cover address, "43 West 61st St., New York 23," is itself an earlier company address than the label's own text, a mismatch typical of these later-1950s/early-1960s repress runs that combined an older jacket with a newer label. Placed against the label chronology, this flat "New York USA" pressing sits after the true deep-groove first pressing and ahead of the 1966 stereo reissue.

Fidelity

Rudy Van Gelder both recorded and mastered the session at Manhattan Towers, and the RVG-etched, Plastylite-eared deadwax on this copy comes from the same lacquers used across the Blue Note pressing runs of this title. Collectors generally rate the earliest deep-groove pressings of this record as the most vivid and dynamic-sounding, with the flat-label repress of this type judged very close but a shade less punchy due to later stamper generations. No audiophile remaster of this specific title is widely tracked by specialist reissue labels, so the choice for sonics remains between the deep-groove original and pressings of this later type.

Notes

This copy carries the flat, no-street-address "Blue Note Records Inc., New York USA" label rather than the deep-groove "47 West 63rd" label of the true 1957 first pressing. The deadwax is etched RVG and stamped with the Plastylite ear on both sides, confirming Van Gelder mastering and Plastylite pressing, but the label design places this copy in the early-1960s repress run rather than the original release. No deep groove is present, consistent with that later label state. The back-cover mailing address, "43 West 61st St., New York 23," is an older company address than the label text and reflects jacket stock carried over from an earlier printing.

Documenting collections

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