Verve
1963
Live At The Village Gate
About This Album
These sessions live at Art D'Lugoff's Village Gate night club in Greenwich Village/N.Y.C. on May 31, 1963 were at one point previously unreleased, eventually issued by the short-lived Metro subsidiary of MGM on vinyl sometime after being recorded, and reissued on CD by Verve in 2008. There are no extra tracks, the session is barely over 30 minutes, the sound a bit thin but not to its detriment, and these facts need to be considered when seeing the purchase price. While Smith's playing is peerless as always, his band with guitarist Quentin Warren and young drummer Billy Hart may be a curiosity for some. Warren is not the best or most adept plectrist Smith employed, but gets the job done in a quiet, unassuming manner. Well before hitting his stride as a premier progressive jazz performer, Hart's style is set apart from soul-jazz drummers like Donald Bailey, Billy James, or Bernard Purdie, using looser rhythmic associations instead of hard-edged funky beats. The resulting performance is very good in spurts but not essential overall. As the repertoire was somewhat unfamiliar for Smith and his fans at the time, Hart's off-the-beaten-path rhythm navigation offers the most intrigue.
Track List (try tracks 1,2 and 3)

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