Jimmy Smith

LP version. Prayer Meetin' is one of the records that Jimmy Smith, the organist who redefined the Hammond B-3 in jazz in the mid-1950s, made with tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. Recorded in February 1963 and released by Blue Note in 1964, it is a set of late-night blues, gospel and R&B grooves. Their early 1960s sessions together are counted among Smith's finest, and they helped define soul jazz.

The session took place on 8 February 1963 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the day after Smith had recorded Rockin' the Boat. Alfred Lion produced and Rudy Van Gelder engineered. Alongside Smith and Turrentine are Quentin Warren on guitar and Donald Bailey on drums. There is no bassist on the original album, so the low end comes from the organ.

The title track, a Smith original, opens the record with a churchy groove and long exchanges between organ and tenor. Turrentine takes the spotlight on I Almost Lost My Mind, the Ivory Joe Hunter ballad, stretched here to more than nine minutes. Red Top, the Gene Ammons tune, brings the whole quartet back into an easy swing. Around them sit a calypso, Stone Cold Dead in the Market, a version of When the Saints Go Marching In and Smith's own Picnickin'.

Reviewing it for AllMusic, Steve Leggett wrote that "Prayer Meetin' is a delight from start to finish". The album was billed to Smith with Turrentine, and the saxophonist's warm, bluesy tone is as central to it as the organ. Later CD editions added two pieces from a June 1960 session with Sam Jones on bass, which are not part of the original LP.

This stereo Tone Poet edition was supervised by Joe Harley and mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analogue master tapes. It is pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI and housed in a deluxe gatefold jacket, with the original notes by Joe Goldberg.