Jimmy Smith - The Sermon! (Blue Note Tone Poet Series)

Jimmy Smith's The Sermon! joins the Blue Note Tone Poet Series on 180-gram vinyl, and few organ records have ever preached with this much conviction.

Released in 1959 and recorded across two sessions by Rudy Van Gelder, it caught Smith deep into his Blue Note run, the musician who did more than anyone to turn the Hammond B-3 into a front-line jazz instrument. By then he was a star, and he had the pick of the label's finest players.

The title track is the main event, a 20-minute blues that lets an all-star lineup take turns at the pulpit: Lee Morgan on trumpet, Lou Donaldson on alto, Tina Brooks on tenor, Kenny Burrell on guitar and Art Blakey keeping the congregation in line. Smith's comping simmers under every solo before he takes over and raises the roof.

Side two offers contrast. J.O.S. brings in a different crew, with George Coleman on alto, Eddie McFadden on guitar and Donald Bailey on drums, while Flamingo closes on a gentler, after-hours note with Morgan out front over Smith's warm chords.

Soulful, swinging and gloriously unhurried, it remains one of the essential Blue Note sessions and the perfect argument for why the organ belongs at the centre of jazz.