Jimmy Smith's Bluesmith: does this sound funny to you?

[sonnymax]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_x4rD-aCWE

[sonnymax]

[JSngry]

Funny? You mean the piano?

Seriously, that's some serious disconnect in what I assume was the booth during mixdown or something...I can tell you that if you start counting the first thing you hear on the tune as beat 2 of bar 12, even though it's totally lacking the turnaround that's in bar 12 in every other chorus, you'll come out even for the opening chorus, but that second one, and some of the ones thereafter, beats are left out all around, so it's got to be some faultyass splicing or something, because everybody is off equally (most of the time - there's some points where Leroy Vinnegar's line is off from everybody else's, but then BAM he's back on it, and it really does not sound either intentional or real-time. It's not like he's expanding the time and then contracting it, not that at all, if it was that, the logic would reveal itself, and this is just like now here's HERE and now here's over HERE and now he's back HERE again, and either Leroy Vinnegar was having a stroke while this was happening or else it's just not real. I tend to think that it's just not real).

At times, it sounds like there's two different takes happening simultaneously on the same reel and they really really fucked up in combining them for the master, but in my head, I'm trying to figure out real math for how that would happen that badly and just can't do it, not like that. You would have to, like, pause your session reel & master in one place, and then restart the session reel in a different place w/o moving the master reel...then say OH SHIT I FUCKED UP and then fix it AFTER the fuckup, not in place of it. or something like that. But you figure if that is Jimmy playing piano behind his own organ solo, somebody was overdubbing something at some point (and maybe Leroy was playing with Jimmy on top of a quartet take and they failed to heed how and when they mixed them together...there's not piano all the way through, so that suggests...something less than a fully linear process right there), so I guess start there and work your way back into the possibilities. Or else just float, baby, FLOAT!!! That's what i think I'll do.

But damn, Teddy Edwards & Ray Crawford STILL sound great.

[JSngry]

Ok, two engineers...possibly one for quartet, the other for overdubs?

[Dan Gould]

Can't listen right now, I am just glad my wife got this session for me a year or so ago. I'd been looking a long time, missed the CD reissue it had then got a European copy for a birthday, iirc.

I listened several times and didn't notice any rhythm hiccups so color me confused. Or just my usual "listen but not nearly as closely as some others do".

[sonnymax]

Jim, thanks for taking the time to listen closely to this song, and for your in-depth comments. I agree that the piano and other possible overdubs are probably at the heart of the "discord" I was hearing.

Dan, I'd be interested in hearing your reactions after a closer listen to this track.

[CJ Shearn]

I'm with Sangrey on this one, it sounds waaay off in the first few bars of the second chorus, I got thrown off........ great playing still, but it's very off in that brief moment he mentions

Edited March 8, 2014 by CJ Shearn

[Dan Gould]

Yeah bottom line it doesn't distract (that much) and its a great performance and great album worth tracking down.

[CJ Shearn]

It was supposed to come as an US Verve reissue years back, but then it was reissued by a Russian outfit. Was that legal, that reissue? It was never on CD anywhere before that, I don't think.

[sonnymax]

It was supposed to come as an US Verve reissue years back, but then it was reissued by a Russian outfit. Was that legal, that reissue? It was never on CD anywhere before that, I don't think.

It's available for download by Verve at iTunes, Amazon, etc.for 6.99.