076: The Cat, by Jimmy Smith

Jimmy Smith (USA)
The Cat (1964)
8 tracks, 33 minutes
Spotify • iTunes

I’m not a fan of big band jazz and orchestral jazz is often quite naff, but when those massed instruments are rallying around someone as cool as Jimmy Smith…well, that’s exactly what The Cat is about.

Having already recorded armfuls of trio and small band releases for Blue Note records in the decade prior to this, Jimmy Smith was already known as a pioneer of the Hammond B-3 organ, and he really solidified the instrument as a tool in the service of the almighty jazz. Then he moved to Verve and started experimenting with larger ensembles, and this is the first time he went with an out-and-out big band, arranged and conducted by Lalo Schifrin.

I reckon it works so well because even though there’s a total of 20 musicians on the record, the way they’re used still feels like a small band set-up. The jazz orchestra plays not quite as one, but as few, and contribute a lot more to the texture and atmosphere than anything else. The focus is still squarely on Smith, and his playing is right on the button with his usual brand of jazz with deep roots in blues and gospel tradition. Schifrin’s band and musical fingerprints also lend everything a very cinematic feel – he was the man behind the Mission Impossible theme, after all, and three of the pieces on the album are directly taken from film soundtracks. When the two styles are brought together as they are here, they actually combine to create a lot of elements that would later crop up in funk.

This is proper music for cool-as-anything action detective films – perhaps with some righteous 1960s kung-fu flair thrown in for good measure. It’s slinky as anything and can pack a proper punch when it wants to. When I listen to The Cat, I want to sneak around streets while making unnecessary dashes between cover and looking around corners dramatically. I might have actually done that once or twice after some slight alcoholic imbibement.

I remain suspicious of big band music – so much of it is just jazz with all of the fun taken out and made nice and non-threatening for white people – but if it has to exist, then do it right. And Jimmy Smith didn’t make a habit of doing things wrong.