Jimmy Smith at Club Baby Grand, Vol. 2 (1956)

Note: the CD I listened to was the mono 2008 Rudy Van Gelder Edition.

If a little bit is good, more is better.

Smith - organ
Thornel Schwartz - guitar
Donald Bailey - drums

Original liner notes by Leonard Feather. 2008 reissue liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.

Reviews/ratings:

• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks, with favorites indicated:

	Title	Writer(s)
1	Caravan	Juan Tizol & Duke Ellington	✔
2	Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing	Sammy Fain & Paul Francis Webster
3	Get Happy	Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler
4	It's All Right With Me	Cole Porter	✔

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:

The Best of Jimmy Smith (1988)	Midnight Special (1961)
Keep On Comin' (1983)	Crazy! Baby (1960)
The Dynamic Duo (1967)	Houseparty (1958)
Back At The Chicken Shack (1963)	The Sermon! (1958)
Home Cookin' (1961)	At Club Baby Grand, Vol. 1 (1956)

Jimmy Smith at Club Baby Grand, Vol. 1 (1956)

Note: the CD I listened to was the mono 2008 Rudy Van Gelder Edition.

Smith's first live album, recorded on August 4, 1956 at Club Baby Grand in Wilmington, Delaware, just months after his first Blue Note releases. We're treated to Smith in a loose, exuberant club environment, where his astonishing technique is apparent. And, for the most part, the rhythm section gets the hell out of the way and lets Smith shine. More relaxed and less polished than Smith's studio records, sure, but it's solid work and, at times, electrifying.

Smith - organ
Thornel Schwartz - guitar
Donald Bailey - drums

Original liner notes by Leonard Feather. 2008 reissue liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard (74 out of 100): "skillful modern stylings strapped to a fundamental, deep-rooted beat."
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks, with favorites indicated:

	Title	Writer(s)
1	Introduction	Mitch Thomas
2	Sweet Georgia Brown	Maceo Pinkard	✔
3	Where Or When	Rodgers & Hart
4	The Preacher	Horace Silver	✔
5	Rosetta	Earl Hines & Henri Woode

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:

The Best of Jimmy Smith (1988)	Midnight Special (1961)
Keep On Comin' (1983)	Crazy! Baby (1960)
The Dynamic Duo (1967)	Houseparty (1958)
Back At The Chicken Shack (1963)	The Sermon! (1958)
Home Cookin' (1961)

Bud Powell - The Amazing Bud Powell. Vol. 1 (1956)

BLUE NOTE 25 "BEST" ALBUMS MONTH* (JULY 2026)

Note: the CD I listened to was a Japanese UHQCD import. For more on the UHQCD format, check out these articles at CD Japan and/or Tracking Angle. And, yes, it sounds fantastic.

From the Blue Note website:

The amazing bebop piano genius Bud Powell made his most enduring recordings as a leader for Blue Note and was a catalyst for moving the label from the hot jazz it was founded on into the modern music being made by Powell, Thelonious Monk, Fats Navarro, and others. Powell’s 1949 & 1951 quintet & trio sessions were first released in 1952 as the 10” LP The Amazing Bud Powell, and later expanded as The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 1 (BLP 1503) when Blue Note moved to the 12” LP and launched the 1500 series in 1955.

I normally prefer hard bop to bebop (is that nitpicking?), but it's hard to ignore this hard-swingin' jazz piano landmark recording. Powell shines throughout and, on 4 of the 12 tracks, so does Sonny Rollins.

Credits and original liner notes by Leonard Feather.

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard (77/100): "a milestone in progressive jazz recording"
• Downbeat (★★★★★): "recommended"
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th ed., 2000): ★★★★
• The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide (1985): ★★★★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★

In addition to being named as one of Blue Note's 25 Best Albums, this album placed at #14 on the udiscover.com list of the 50 Greatest Blue Note Albums

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: Un Poco Loco is indeed a classic, but I wish they hadn't put all 3 takes in consecutive tracks to lead the album. Other highlights are It Could Happen To You (Alternate Master), A Night In Tunisia, Orinthology, and Parisian Thoroughfare.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
Inner Fires: The Genius Of Bud Powell (1982)

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*In 1987, the European offices of Blue Note records compiled a list of the 25 Best Blue Note Albums in an effort to promote sales of classic Blue Note albums released on CD for the first time. Albums selected for the list were originally released in the years 1953-1967.

At the time, the Blue Note label had been subsumed by the EMI group. This allowed the selections to be made from other EMI labels, namely Capitol, United Artists, and Liberty. Therefore, the list-makers were able to look outside the Blue Note label and squeeze in titles by artists such as Miles Davis, Chet Baker, & Count Basie. It reads more like "albums we had the rights to, by 25 well-known jazz artists," making the list as much about artists as albums. As a marketing tool, it makes sense. As a starting place to build a Blue Note collection you could do worse. Of course, you could also do much better. But the thing exists, it caught my attention, and here we are.

As of this writing (30 July 2026), 19 of the 25 albums have already appeared on this blog, with at least one more on the way:

• Moanin' - Art Blakey, 1958, Blue Note
• Atomic Mr. Basie - Count Basie, 1958, Capitol
• Birth Of The Cool - Miles Davis, 1957, Capitol
• Somethin' Else - Cannonball Adderley, 1958, Blue Note
• Blue Train - John Coltrane, 1958, Blue Note
• Cool Struttin' - Sonny Clark, 1958, Blue Note
• Out To Lunch - Eric Dolphy, 1964, Blue Note
• Go - Dexter Gordon, 1962, Blue Note
• Maiden Voyage - Herbie Hancock, 1965, Blue Note
• Blue & Sentimental - Ike Quebec, 1962, Blue Note
• Midnight Blue - Kenny Burrell, 1963, Blue Note
• The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 1 - Bud Powell, 1956, Blue Note
• Workout - Hank Mobley, 1962, Blue Note
• Money Jungle - Duke Ellington, 1963, United Artists
• Newk's Time - Sonny Rollins, 1959, Blue Note
• Song For My Father - Horace Silver, 1965, Blue Note
• Speak No Evil - Wayne Shorter, 1965, Blue Note
• Back At The Chicken Shack - Jimmy Smith, 1963, Blue Note
• The Real McCoy - McCoy Tyner, 1967, Blue Note

Thad Jones - The Magnificent Thad Jones (1956)

Note: the CD I listened to was a EU import of the 2007 Rudy Van Gelder Edition which includes 2 bonus tracks.

This was the first Blue Note release for Jones as a leader. While he later became more widely known for co-leading the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, The Magnificent Thad Jones remains a high point of his small-group work. According to the Blue Note website, the album "is widely regarded as the greatest small group recording of the trumpeter and composer’s career." The solos throughout make it seem the band was having a great time making the recording. The more I listen to this hard bop CD, the more I enjoy it.

Mono recording at the Van Gelder Studio on July 9 & 14, 1956. Original album liner notes by Leonard Feather and 2007 reissue liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.

Jones - trumpet
Billy Mitchell - tenor sax
Barry Harris - piano
Percy Heath - bass
Max Roach - drums

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard: "This is the greatest Jones album yet."
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th ed., 2000): ★★★½
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: Did not chart
• DownBeat Jazz Bestsellers: #20

Tracks:

1. April In Paris: 1932 standard from the Broadway musical, Walk A Little Faster.
2. Billie-Doo: a Jones original
3. If I Love Again: 1933 song from the Broadway musical, Hold Your Horses.
4. If Someone Had Told Me: song from the 1952 movie musical, About Face.
5. Thedia: a Jones original

Bonus tracks:

6. I've Got A Crush On You: Gershwin standard from the 1928 Broadway musical, Treasure Girl.
7. Something To Remember You By: from the 1930 Broadway musical revue, Three's A Crowd.

While the original album is fantastic, I find myself preferring the two beautiful bonus tracks. The final cut, Something To Remember You By, is quite different than anything on the album as it features Jones with a muted trumpet accompanied only by Kenny Burrell on guitar. Sublime.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but when I made a weak attempt at being a magician as a prepubescent boy, I gave myself the nickname "Mark the Magnificent," so Thad and I have that commonality.

It's A Spike Jones Christmas (1988)

Note: this release was originally purchased as an LP, later replaced by a CD.

Before we get to the music, let's look at this recording's lineage. In 1956, this album was released on vinyl as Spike Jones Xmas Spectacular (click photos to enlarge).


There's a rumor that it was re-released in 1963 as 35 Reasons Why Christmas Can Be Fun (Verve MG V-8564) but I can neither confirm nor deny that record's existence.

In 1970, the album was reissued, this time the original monaural recordings had been "electronically recorded to simulate stereo" and the album had a new title: Let's Sing A Song Of Christmas.

In 1988, Rhino reissued the album in hand today.  Music exactly the same, but a new title, graphics, and liner notes.

And not one mention anywhere about the earlier releases. I expect more from Rhino.

Finally, in 1998, Verve reissued the album on CD with different cover art while reverting to the Let's Sing A Song Of Christmas title. Liner notes by Richard Carpenter. This is the version that's readily available as of this writing, but other than the stereo/mono mixes, there's no difference in any of the releases.

One of my all-time favorite Christmas albums is Christmas Portrait by The Carpenters. In writing about that album, Richard Carpenter admits that "to a degree, our project was patterned after a favorite of ours: Spike Jones’s 1956 'Xmas Spectacular', in that it features more than the average album's number of songs, both sacred and secular, along with some top-notch choral singing." Good enough for me - that's why I bought the LP and now the CD. And once you've heard both the Spike Jones and Carpenters albums, you'll immediately hear the similarities in song selection and arrangements, particularly in the numerous medleys. If you're as big a fan of the Carpenters' disc as I am, you owe it to yourself to listen to this album at least once.

This isn't a typical Spike Jones album with all the musical comedy trappings. Sure, there's the occasional kazoo, gulps, Pig Latin, random sound effects, and novelty song, but it's mainly an easy-listening choral album (think Ray Conniff with a sense of humor) and a good one at that. In other words, Spike plays it (mostly) straight for a change.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks:  21 tracks, 51 minutes. My favorites are Silent Night, Sleigh Ride, Snow Medley, Deck The Halls Medley, White Christmas Medley (I see a pattern developing here), Frosty The Snowman, Hark Medley, Victor Young Medley, Here Comes Santa Claus, and What Are You doing New Year's Eve?. The novelty songs aren't great, but provide a little variety. Most tracks are around 2 minutes in length, so everything moves pretty fast.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but it sounds exactly like the kind of music my father would put on the reel-to-reel player when the family decorated the tree in the early '70s.

Me and my mother, 1970

Clifford Brown - The Beginning And The End (1973)

From the cover: "The first and last recorded performances of one of the greatest soloists in the history of jazz." That pretty much sums it up. Brown's gift was quickly taken from us when he died at age 25 in 1956. With his tone, technique, and charisma, he might have been the biggest name in jazz. Ever. Even though this disc is only 34 minutes long, it contains 30 minutes of incredible music - a fantastic musician at the peak of his career. Amazingly, these tracks weren't issued as a set until 1973.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: The first two tracks are R&B tracks from Chris Powell And His Blue Flames. They're not much to listen to; at 21 years of age, Brown easily steals the show. Much better are the last three tracks: Walkin', Night In Tunisia, and Donna Lee, recorded in June 1956 at a Philadelphia record store with a local sextet. Brown would die in a car accident early the next morning.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I had heard of Brown for years, but had never owned any of his recordings. Then, in 1999, I saw the play Side Man on Broadway (with a great cast that included Christian Slater and Edie Falco). In one of the play's later scenes, a group of aging jazzers sit around listening to this recording of Night In Tunisia. There's no dialogue, just the musicians reacting to a great performance. For me, it was the best, most authentic scene in the play. No words were spoken because none were needed. I bought this CD almost immediately.