Jimmy Smith

Jimmy Smith

Introduction

Jimmy Smith was born on 8th December 1925, and is also known as “The Incredible Jimmy Smith”. Jimmy Smith was a musician of the jazz genre of music. His performance on the instrument “Hammond B-3 electric organ” made it more popular. Jimmy Smith was a great performer and achieved many awards. The discussion has highlighted jazz music style of Jimmy Smith and observations on his famous track “Midnight Special”.

Characteristics of the Historic Jazz Style

The early jazz style was introduced in the time of Great Depression when the situation brought some smaller bands. These bands and music gave emergence to the jazz music. The jazz style has a rich history and possesses various characteristics that led to the acceptance of this music genre. There are various style of jazz music like Ragtime, Classic Jazz, Hot Jazz, Chicago Style, Swing, Kansas City Style, Gypsy Jazz, Mainstream, Cool, Vocalese, Hard Bop, and Bossa Nova. The rhythms of jazz music have a musical heritage from the African region.

In the period of 1920s, there was more use of collective improvisation and instruments like trumpet, trombone, etc. In this period, the New Orleans style was replaced by the Chicago style. The Swing and Big Band era started in the 1930s; this period was the most popular period in the history of jazz music. The characteristics of this period were the emphasis on showmanship and written arrangements like band uniforms, singers and choreography. In 1945, the Bop period had the characteristics of focusing more on improvements, rather than complex arrangements. The cool jazz style was the calm and unhurried period (Gioia, 2011). Later on, since the 1980s very few styles and characteristics emerged in the jazz music genre.

Styles of Jimmy Smith

Jimmy Smith was one of the popular musicians who had a ...