Johnny “Hammond” Smith - That Good Feelin’ (Prestige)

Saddled with a name that’s about as generic as they come organist Johnny “Hammond” Smith also had the added baggage of sharing a surname with the reigning emperor of his chosen instrument. Jimmy Smith was the undisputed king when the pair of records on this Prestige two-fer were taped at Van Gelder studio. But his rule fortunately left of room for plenty of peers to share in the popularity. Further suggesting superficial ties to Jimmy, Thornel Schwartz, a Smith alum, handles guitar and second chair soloist duties. Drummer Leo Stevens and bassist George Tucker complete the laidback Harlem lounge-style ensemble. Smith skates easily and expressively through 14 tracks calculated to mirror a handful of his typical club sets. It’s all fairly predictable to any connoisseur of the idiom, but also laden with numerous groove-suffused moments and capacious amounts of “soul” in a down home, unaffected sense. Standards like “ Secret Love” and Bye Bye Blackbird” alternate with vamp-rooted blues numbers to create an overarching mood of imperturbable agreeability. Schwartz’s loose-gaited single note improvisations bookend a seven-minute stroll through an original blues “Easy Like.” Tucker’s solos are exceedingly spare and Stevens hides shyly behind his hi-hat much of the time. But Smith’s the star after all and capitalizes on earned latitude to explore virtually every setting on his console at one point or another. His numerous experiments include a crazy take on “I’ll Remember April” that sounds like he’s filtering his strings of notes through a cheap Casio attachment. Prestige was something of an assembly line for these sorts of sessions in the late 50s and early 60s -Smith cut nearly two dozen himself between 1956 and 1971- but as organ dates go these two early Smith sides are rich in charm and replay value.