Rating:
Genre:
Jazz
Release Date: 03/18/2008
These sessions live at
Art D'Lugoff's
Village Gate night club in Greenwich Village/N.Y.C. on May 31, 1963 were at one point previously unreleased, eventually issued by the short-lived
Metro subsidiary of
MGM on vinyl sometime after being recorded, and reissued on CD by
Verve in 2008. There are no extra tracks, the session is barely over 30 minutes, the sound a bit thin but not to its detriment, and these facts need to be considered when seeing the purchase price. While
Smith's playing is peerless as always, his band with guitarist
Quentin Warren and young drummer
Billy Hart may be a curiosity for some.
Warren is not the best or most adept plectrist
Smith employed, but gets the job done in a quiet, unassuming manner. Well before hitting his stride as a premier progressive jazz performer,
Hart's style is set apart from soul-jazz drummers like
Donald Bailey,
Billy James, or
Bernard Purdie, using looser rhythmic associations instead of hard-edged funky beats. The resulting performance is very good in spurts but not essential overall. As the repertoire was somewhat unfamiliar for
Smith and his fans at the time,
Hart's off-the-beaten-path rhythm navigation offers the most intrigue. When the trio kicks off with the
Ray Charles hit
"I Got a Woman," the drummer uses African type churning rhythms aside
Warren's crisp, clipped guitar on this fingersnappin' fave.
Hart's use of his upper and lower tom-toms again de-emphasizes straight funk or swing on the midtempo swinger
"Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey?" "The Champ" is more along the lines of the classic bop
Smith did favor at the time, with
Warren's off minor, angular, out of the ordinary lines a departure from soul-jazz, but falling in line with a
Thelonious Monk riff. The careful version of
"If I Were a Bell" turns up the sly and seductive quotient, a sedate and secretive melodic inference courtesy of
Smith, picking up steam a bit during his solo. One might wonder in retrospect what
Smith thought of this date, and though collectors and completists will certainly enjoy the playing of this fine trio, it does remain a sidebar to many of his many other classic live sessions.
~Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide
;)
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