More Jimmy Smith

More Kenny Burrell

• With Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it on both sides, this copy handily won our shootout
• The best sides have the kind of analog richness, warmth and smoothness that we make listening to records so involving
• Some pop tunes, some Ellington and more, all of which has a real funky feel to it, with Jimmy really getting into it and grunting along with the music
• “This 1965 Verve release finds the B-3 innovator mixing it up with organ and guitar combo swingers and big band charts compliments of arranger Oliver Nelson.”

This copy was just plain bigger and richer and tubier, as well as more dynamic than the others we played!

This vintage Verve pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.

What amazing sides such as these have to offer is not hard to hear:

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1966
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We’re Listening For on Got My Mojo Workin’

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

The Players and Personnel

Alto Saxophone – Phil Woods

Baritone Saxophone – Jerome Richardson

Bass – Ron Carter

Drums – Grady Tate

Guitar – Kenny Burrell

Tenor Saxophone, Flute – Romeo Penque

Trumpet – Ernie Royal

Producer – Creed Taylor

Engineer – Rudy Van Gelder

Director Of Engineering– Val Valentin

TRACK LISTING

Side One

High Heel Sneakers
I Can’t Get No Satisfaction
1-2-3
Mustard Greens

Side Two

Got My Mojo Working
Johnny Come Lately
C Jam Blues
Hobson’s Hop

AMG  Review

After seven high-quality years with Blue Note, organist Jimmy Smith switched over to the Verve label for a lengthy and fruitful run lasting from 1963 until the early ’70s (Smith would eventually return to the company for two fine albums in the mid-’90s).

This 1965 Verve release, Got My Mojo Workin’, finds the B-3 innovator mixing it up with organ and guitar combo swingers and big band charts compliments of arranger Oliver Nelson.