In ‘74 my soon to be wife and I dropped into Johnny Smiths music store in Colorado Springs. He was the nicest man to just chat with. I was on my way to North Texas State to get a music degree, he was most helpful offering kind advice. An unforgettable afternoon.
RIP. Johnny Smith. My mother owned a music studio in Colorado Springs, where he lived, and saw him come in a couple of years ago, and talked with him about absolutely nothing of consequence. He was the most unassuming guy, and absolutely blew me away when I listened to him as a kid.
Yea man ! This is definitely rare footage . Two true masters of modern jazz guitar . Especially relevant in that I just finished reading a bio of Charlie Christian . Thankful too that I had the opportunity to meet & visit with Mundell several years before he passed . So God bless all you pickers out there !
Mundy is actually from Mississipi, Laurel I believe,, but now lives in California, I just saw him playing at the Park Hotel in San Diego.. he's 88 and still going strong.. I am trying to get someone to make a documentary of his fabulous, incredible career.. this guy IS a one man history of American Jazz music.. from New Orleans, to New York to the West Coast... he's been there, done that and played with absolutely everyone.. and is a fine gentleman to boot..
TERRIFIC! Thanks for posting this. Johnny Smith is THE jazz guitar legend and to watch him play is just great! Add to that the great Mundell Lowe and amazing Hank Jones.... Superb jazz archive!
Mention spéciale au pianiste .Les guitaristes sont largement dépassés par les nouvelles générations qu'ils ont inspirées .C'est un documentaire et un témoignage précieux .Merci .
Mundell Lowe and Johnny Smith on stage together...too much! Mundell is such an underrated player. Just amazing. But then there's Johnny...forget it, man! He's got such a deep understanding of music...when you want to hear it played right just throw on some JS...esp. that era around "Moonlight".
Your dad was really well loved Mundell Lowe had the tone had the feel I met him over at Jimmy Daquisto shop . After he left Jimmy waxed poetically really wanted me to know how good a guy he was I'm sure some of it rubbed off on you it's nice to know your dad keeps pleasing after hes gone
This is a real gem. Thanks for uploading. Johnny Smith played with the CBS orchestra (when it was an orchestra) and was a New York studio ace in addition to his jazz career. Known for his close voiced "piano style" chord voicings. Great guitarists and the piano player is outstanding too.
Johnny also played a Guild and a D'Angelico. His solo on Bye Bye Blackbird with Art Van Dame is a knockout. The album is A Perfect Match. BTW Mundell tunes his sixth string (E) down to D. That's the reason his chords look a little different. Great playing by great players.
Come on man. These men are in the last phase of their career. They still retain a lot of the virtuosity they had when they were young. They are ledgends.
Johnny Smith is the most technically proficient jazz guitarist of his generation. He could read anything you put on a music stand. Hypersonic speed was his forte'.
Actually, harmonic sophistication and pianistic command of chord voicings was his forte. Technically, he was in his own Private Idaho, and while his chops and single line work was formidable, he never gave in to the temptation to simply burn for the sake of burning. Everything was about the music.
One of the odd things about the Johnny Smith model Gibson was that the last three strings G,D,A, were monel wrapped, and the sixth E, was a flatwound. One of Johnny's requirments outside of not having any electronic parts touch the top of the guitar. The jack was mounted in the pickguard along with the controls. It screwed on rather than plugged in.
That's no amateur video...there are too many cameras from too many angles and too much video mixing going on, not to mention the sound is too good; that's not a camcorder. This original video was professionally produced, but the clip posted here was obviously taken from a rather grainy VHS tape copy. Is this by any chance from the W.C. Handy Music Festival from that year? Mundell Lowe's wikipedia page says he's very involved in that yearly festival in Florence, Alabama.
johnny smith is a higly influential guitar player and probly one of the best. Check out the album moonlight in vermont featuring stan getz, a true classic.
Probably Johnny Smith is playing a Johnny Smith model Gibson. They came out in the sixties both in natural and sunburst. It was the first jazz guitar Gibson had that featured a "floating" pickup. All of the controls were mounted on the pickguard. Johnny felt that anything touching the guitar's top hindered tone. They guitar is still very popular and there are about three or four guitar companines making a Johnny Smith model guitar. The Gibson Johnny Smith model is my favorite.
When JS helped design his artist model, he took ideas from several models .. for instance, the L5 tailpiece, but Super 400 position markers, the scale length is 25 inches (I think) not the usual 25 1/2 or 24 3/4 inches, I think the body width is a "between" size, as well and an Epiphone mini humbucker and all wood bridge (no tune-a-matic)
Mundell appears to be playing a Jimmy D'Aquisto guitar, and what a treat to hear and see these giants together. Looks like greats Monty Budwig on bass and Hank Jones on piano. Can't make out the drummer.
@@chipstern1are you related to Jazz Fusion Guitarist Mike Stern? He has a son named Chip Stern. A friend of mine was his guitar teacher at Berkeley in Boston. Professor Donovan Mixon.🎸🎵
@petercallaway3376 I'm closer friends with Bill Frisell. I know Mike from his old days with Miles and the 55 Grand scene. Don't have the face time with Mike I do with Bill. Last time I hung with Mike were at the rehearsals for the THREE OR FOUR GENERATIONS OF MILES sessions on Chesky Records with Mike, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb and George Coleman. Not too shabby. I was doing the liner notes. Tenor man Coleman was calling out chords by ear to Mike, like "Ninth chord, no, with a sixth in the bass." And Mike was Johnny On The Spot. What a level of musicianship...DAMN. And of course, Mike was so humble. "Man, I've got to practice." Mike, get the hell out of here. When I first met Mike he was catching hell as Miles' guitarist, because Miles wanted that Hendrix thing, which he was adept at, but it bugged the hell out of me that no one commented on the clear mastery of Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall. Mike was taken aback. "Of course. You can hear that, why can't anyone else?" Well, long hair, a t shirt and a Strat dude. If you had a Johhny Smith hair cut, a Van Heusen shirt and a Gibson ES -175, it would be more obvious. Anyway, great talent, and a lovely cat. I'd be genuinely flabbergasted if he named his son after me, but I kinda doubt it.
That's true, but there's two sides to that coin.The new players (and I'm generalizing of course) didn't receive the same sort of generational handing down of knowledge that the old players got.In fact I'd dare to say,a great deal of the generation of jazz musicians before this one where even greedy with what they knew.In a way,it's having to be learned all over again.It is being learned again,and you've got to give props to that.Even if it is coming out different.
Actually, stann2211stan, it's an L5 with a Charlie Christian pu. Check the flower pot on the headstock, the block position markers, and the tailpiece. It's an L5, no doubt.
Chalek is right. Lowe was playing his custom made D'Aquisto, which the late Jimmy D' made for him. It's practically a priceless guitar. Smith was playing one of the later-period, Norlin-era Gibson Johnny Smith guitars--also nice, but not a one-off like the D'Aquisto.
its funny how everyone craves avenged sevenfold and their guitarist's sweep picking solos when these guys dont need to sweep. they can shred and actually make good music.
Boy even if lagrene lives a 100 years he won't have the class,elegance,poetry,depth, artistry of what these 2 have.Johnny Smith and Mundell are classes above and beyond that little django wannabe.
In ‘74 my soon to be wife and I dropped into Johnny Smiths music store in Colorado Springs. He was the nicest man to just chat with. I was on my way to North Texas State to get a music degree, he was most helpful offering kind advice. An unforgettable afternoon.
RIP. Johnny Smith. My mother owned a music studio in Colorado Springs, where he lived, and saw him come in a couple of years ago, and talked with him about absolutely nothing of consequence. He was the most unassuming guy, and absolutely blew me away when I listened to him as a kid.
Johnny Smith the greatest.
Yea man ! This is definitely rare footage . Two true masters of modern jazz guitar . Especially relevant in that I just finished reading a bio of Charlie Christian .
Thankful too that I had the opportunity to meet & visit with Mundell several years before he passed . So God bless all you pickers out there !
I think it might be Alan Dawson...
Johnny Smith and Hank Jones...my goose bumps have goosebumps...
Mundell Lowe no slouch, either...DAMN!
It is
Mundy is actually from Mississipi, Laurel I believe,, but now lives in California, I just saw him playing at the Park Hotel in San Diego.. he's 88 and still going strong.. I am trying to get someone to make a documentary of his fabulous, incredible career.. this guy IS a one man history of American Jazz music.. from New Orleans, to New York to the West Coast... he's been there, done that and played with absolutely everyone.. and is a fine gentleman to boot..
TERRIFIC! Thanks for posting this. Johnny Smith is THE jazz guitar legend and to watch him play is just great! Add to that the great Mundell Lowe and amazing Hank Jones....
Superb jazz archive!
Mention spéciale au pianiste .Les guitaristes sont largement dépassés par les
nouvelles générations qu'ils ont inspirées .C'est un documentaire et un témoignage
précieux .Merci .
i LOVE Hank Jones his sound is so happy and elegant
yes, elegant has always been my first thought about hank's playing.
Old is NEW~in 2023! 🤩
I took a couple of lessons from Johnny back in Colorado.Springs great
My teacher, the great Alan Dawson on drums!
My late father's drummer, Pal Johnson also studied under Mr. Dawson at Berklee!!
Mundell Lowe and Johnny Smith on stage together...too much! Mundell is such an underrated player. Just amazing. But then there's Johnny...forget it, man! He's got such a deep understanding of music...when you want to hear it played right just throw on some JS...esp. that era around "Moonlight".
So frickin cool. There’s the solos but the comping is a lesson unto itself.
My father and the late Johnny Smith tore it up that day at the; and it iwas the Mobile Jazz festival he help start!!
Mundy was your dad?
One of the finest gentlemen I have ever met.
MidnightJazzer you dad and Mr Smith were the greatest!
Your dad was really well loved Mundell Lowe had the tone had the feel I met him over at Jimmy Daquisto shop . After he left Jimmy waxed poetically really wanted me to know how good a guy he was I'm sure some of it rubbed off on you it's nice to know your dad keeps pleasing after hes gone
It's healthy for a young musician to play fast,they always have. Expression will get richer and more well rounded as the musician matures.
I went looking for some Mundell Lowe clips . . .and I found this "GEM" with Johnny Smith.
Many, many THANKS Bob for sharing this!!!
Joe
Great chord work from these two masters!
This is a real gem. Thanks for uploading. Johnny Smith played with the CBS orchestra (when it was an orchestra) and was a New York studio ace in addition to his jazz career. Known for his close voiced "piano style" chord voicings. Great guitarists and the piano player is outstanding too.
mundell lowe and johnny smith, this is too cool thanks for posting
Love it!!!
there are really not enough videos of johnny smith around! this is fantastic.
thanks!
They say Smiths reading was so precise that classical composers would use him all the time in the studio.
Man--the recording sound is outstanding!
Thanks again - for this and the other JS clip you posted a month ago. It's a thrill to listed and watch him play.
Amateur footage? Those multi camera angles are top quality! Whoever filmed this really did a great job. Thanks for posting this superb gem!
BT
Wow masters of guitar
You have to love it!
Very classy. Both players are fabulous. Thanks for posting this video
RC
Mundell just took off on this one.Superb.
this is so good.
Johnny also played a Guild and a D'Angelico. His solo on Bye Bye Blackbird with Art Van Dame is a knockout. The album is A Perfect Match. BTW Mundell tunes his sixth string (E) down to D. That's the reason his chords look a little different. Great playing by great players.
Great.Johnny Smith hat this chord voicings.perfect.
Come on man. These men are in the last phase of their career. They still retain a lot of the virtuosity they had when they were young. They are ledgends.
Johnny Smith for president!!!!!
Is that Hank Jones on piano?
Johnny Smith is the most technically proficient jazz guitarist of his generation.
He could read anything you put on a music stand.
Hypersonic speed was his forte'.
Actually, harmonic sophistication and pianistic command of chord voicings was his forte. Technically, he was in his own Private Idaho, and while his chops and single line work was formidable, he never gave in to the temptation to simply burn for the sake of burning. Everything was about the music.
Well as I say at the top of this page in the write-up for this clip, this is amateur footage, but it's better than nothing.
Bob
That is justice.
One of the odd things about the Johnny Smith model Gibson was that the last three strings G,D,A, were monel wrapped, and the sixth E, was a flatwound. One of Johnny's requirments outside of not having any electronic parts touch the top of the guitar. The jack was mounted in the pickguard along with the controls. It screwed on rather than plugged in.
Johnny deployed a flatwound Low E string because he often drop tuned the 6th string to a low D or even a low C#.
Wow,thank you so much for this great clip, any more available?
Uh...Johhny Smith was already BEYOND BRILLIANT for years as a guitarist when Biréli Lagrène was in diapers or even learning cowboy chords.
That's no amateur video...there are too many cameras from too many angles and too much video mixing going on, not to mention the sound is too good; that's not a camcorder. This original video was professionally produced, but the clip posted here was obviously taken from a rather grainy VHS tape copy. Is this by any chance from the W.C. Handy Music Festival from that year? Mundell Lowe's wikipedia page says he's very involved in that yearly festival in Florence, Alabama.
Who are the other musicians?
Hanks Jones piano? Drums & Bass?
johnny smith is a higly influential guitar player and probly one of the best. Check out the album moonlight in vermont featuring stan getz, a true classic.
I agree.
Probably Johnny Smith is playing a Johnny Smith model Gibson. They came out in the sixties both in natural and sunburst. It was the first jazz guitar Gibson had that featured a "floating" pickup. All of the controls were mounted on the pickguard. Johnny felt that anything touching the guitar's top hindered tone. They guitar is still very popular and there are about three or four guitar companines making a Johnny Smith model guitar. The Gibson Johnny Smith model is my favorite.
Hot DAMN
Somewhere Charlie Christian is smiling.
Hank Jones on piano!!
a young Lenny Breau cited Johnny Smith as his favourite
Team Tight!
That was Awesome man! Also on the fly after rehearsing no doubt but what players!?
Who's the guy playing the Gibson Johnny Smith L5?
When JS helped design his artist model, he took ideas from several models ..
for instance, the L5 tailpiece, but Super 400 position markers, the scale length is
25 inches (I think) not the usual 25 1/2 or 24 3/4 inches, I think the body width is a "between" size, as well and an Epiphone mini humbucker and all wood bridge (no tune-a-matic)
Interesting. I'd thought it was just an L5 with his name on it. One way or another, it is my absolute dream guitar.
@@zankyalbo2208 The internal bracing for the spruce top is also different than the other Gibson arch tops of the 60s.
@warrenbattistejazz
exactly!
Hi Bob,
My browser kept freezing and would like to remove all multiple post but One. Thanks,
Joe
Mundell appears to be playing a Jimmy D'Aquisto guitar, and what a treat to hear and see these giants together. Looks like greats Monty Budwig on bass and Hank Jones on piano. Can't make out the drummer.
Alan Dawson
@@chipstern1are you related to Jazz Fusion Guitarist Mike Stern?
He has a son named Chip Stern.
A friend of mine was his guitar teacher at Berkeley in Boston. Professor Donovan Mixon.🎸🎵
@petercallaway3376 I'm closer friends with Bill Frisell. I know Mike from his old days with Miles and the 55 Grand scene. Don't have the face time with Mike I do with Bill.
Last time I hung with Mike were at the rehearsals for the THREE OR FOUR GENERATIONS OF MILES sessions on Chesky Records with Mike, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb and George Coleman. Not too shabby. I was doing the liner notes.
Tenor man Coleman was calling out chords by ear to Mike, like "Ninth chord, no, with a sixth in the bass." And Mike was Johnny On The Spot. What a level of musicianship...DAMN.
And of course, Mike was so humble. "Man, I've got to practice." Mike, get the hell out of here.
When I first met Mike he was catching hell as Miles' guitarist, because Miles wanted that Hendrix thing, which he was adept at, but it bugged the hell out of me that no one commented on the clear mastery of Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall.
Mike was taken aback. "Of course. You can hear that, why can't anyone else?"
Well, long hair, a t shirt and a Strat dude. If you had a Johhny Smith hair cut, a Van Heusen shirt and a Gibson ES -175, it would be more obvious.
Anyway, great talent, and a lovely cat. I'd be genuinely flabbergasted if he named his son after me, but I kinda doubt it.
That's true, but there's two sides to that coin.The new players (and I'm generalizing of course) didn't receive the same sort of generational handing down of knowledge that the old players got.In fact I'd dare to say,a great deal of the generation of jazz musicians before this one where even greedy with what they knew.In a way,it's having to be learned all over again.It is being learned again,and you've got to give props to that.Even if it is coming out different.
Actually, stann2211stan, it's an L5 with a Charlie Christian pu. Check the flower pot on the headstock, the block position markers, and the tailpiece. It's an L5, no doubt.
Could be. But no way a CC pickup.
Swing swing
Chalek is right. Lowe was playing his custom made D'Aquisto, which the late Jimmy D' made for him. It's practically a priceless guitar. Smith was playing one of the later-period, Norlin-era Gibson Johnny Smith guitars--also nice, but not a one-off like the D'Aquisto.
Hh
It was his beach guitar you think hes going to bring out any of those early 61 prototypes
No they don't.
Johnny Smith is the epitome of alternate picking,that is what makes his sound
so clean.
Who's the pianist??
Pretty good cuts and angles for an amateur director ;)
80's. you HAD TO put some chorus on the guitars. ;)
Some people really do that speed equates to excellence. That's unfortunate, and usually is a comment made by the naive.
its funny how everyone craves avenged sevenfold and their guitarist's sweep picking solos when these guys dont need to sweep. they can shred and actually make good music.
Boy even if lagrene lives a 100 years he won't have the class,elegance,poetry,depth, artistry of
what these 2 have.Johnny Smith and Mundell are classes above and beyond
that little django wannabe.
Why does he say "Benny Goodman?" These guys know it's Charlie Christian!
Charlie Christian was Benny Goodman's guitar player. It is a Benny Goodman song.
only sometimes. mostly they just pick really fast.
Excellent guitar playing. But playing with your back to the audience is rude.
I went looking for some Mundell Lowe clips . . .and I found this "GEM" with Johnny Smith.
Many, many THANKS Bob for sharing this!!!
Joe
I went looking for some Mundell Lowe clips . . . and I found this "GEM" with Johnny Smith.
Many, many THANKS Bob for sharing this!!!
Joe
I went looking for some Mundell Lowe clips . . .and I found this "GEM" with Johnny Smith.
Many, many THANKS Bob for sharing this!!!
Joe
I went looking for some Mundell Lowe clips . . .and I found this "GEM" with Johnny Smith.
Many, many THANKS Bob for sharing this!!!
Joe
I went looking for some Mundell Lowe clips . . .and I found this "GEM" with Johnny Smith.
Many, many THANKS Bob for sharing this!!!
Joe
I went looking for some Mundell Lowe clips . . .and I found this "GEM" with Johnny Smith.
Many, many THANKS Bob for sharing this!!!
Joe