I knew a blues musician who played a Hammond B-3 organ at local bars, and my sympathy went out to him.

Anyone who plays a B-3 live ought to bring along a forklift, but unless you were touring stadiums, that suggestion would be ridiculous. The B-3 weighs in at 425 pounds, and that doesn’t count the hefty speaker cabinet. Still, a main selling point was its lightness when compared to its predecessor, which required railroad cars to move from place to place! An instrument designed for churches with limited budgets quickly realized its destiny when Black Southern churches utilized the instrument and discovered its versatility through secular players, who then utilized it for blues and jazz interpretation.

Jimmy Smith was not the first secular musician to play the B-3 but nobody did more to popularize the instrument. Starting in 1956, he became one of the first bonafide stars for Blue Note Records, helping to escalate the label from a boutique regional presence to a national entity. The reasons for this are obvious on “Back at the Chicken Shack.” Smith’s B-3 burbles with cool confidence through the shuffle beat on the title track, while the blues-based tenor sax of Stanley Turrentine helps to redefine a new style of soul-steeped jazz. Kenny Burrell’s guitar adds a touch of class while drummer Donald Bailey fleshes out the rhythm section. As for bass, that’s entirely covered by Smith’s B-3. If you’re a fan of Booker T and the MG’s (“Green Onions” was released around the same time as this album), you can thank Jimmy Smith for providing some of the inspiration.

Featured Tracks:

Back at the Chicken Shack

When I Grow Too Old to Dream

Minor Chant

Messy Bessie

March 1963 - Billboard Charted #14