Jimmy Smith – Organ Grinder Swing

Acoustic Sounds Series reissues from Verve/Universal Music Enterprises!

Monthly releases highlighting the world’s most historic and best jazz records!

Mastered by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab from the original analog tapes

180-gram LPs pressed at Quality Record Pressings!

Stoughton Printing gatefold old-style tip-on jackets

Series supervised by Chad Kassem CEO of Acoustic Sounds

Recorded on June 14, 1965, at Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs studio and produced by Creed Taylor, Organ Grinder Swing marked Jimmy Smith’s return to the organ-trio format after several large-ensemble Verve projects, pairing him with guitarist Kenny Burrell and drummer Grady Tate in a compact setting that highlights the immediacy of his Hammond B-3 sound.

Burrell’s clean melodic lines and subtle comping mesh with Smith’s harmonically rich phrasing, while Tate’s crisp, steady time anchors the trio across a program that includes the driving title track, the reflective “I’ll Close My Eyes,” and the blues-inflected “Blues for J.” A commercial success and one of the most enduring small-group albums of Smith’s Verve years, the record reaffirmed the trio as a central vehicle for his artistry and remains a defining document of his mid-1960s style.