Joey DeFrancesco with Jimmy Smith: Legacy

With a core quartet that features guitarist Paul Bollenback and drummer Byron Landham, both members of DeFrancesco's regular working trio, the emphasis is on groove and blues. Even the opening title track—with its electric sitar, gongs, and "ghost zither—is, at the end of the day, a blues, albeit one with a subcontinental harmonic sensibility and a touch of modalism. A variety of guests flesh out the base quartet, including the Banda brothers, bassist Tony and percussionist Ramon, and another septuagenarian, James Moody, on tenor on DeFrancesco's swinging "Jones'n for Elvin.

The set combines classic Smith titles—"Back at the Chicken Shack, "Midnight Special, and "Got My Mojo Workin', which, while not a Smith composition, is one he covered—with a couple of standards, including Jobim's "Corcovado and Sonny Rollins' "St. Thomas, as well as new compositions by both Smith and DeFrancesco. But the writing is almost secondary to the loose and playful approach of everyone involved, more a means to an end than an end in itself.

Of the two players, DeFrancesco clearly has the broader reach. He's got a more developed harmonic sensibility, as evidenced by his piano solo on the title track; he's also a cleaner player with inarguably better chops. Still, it's not all about technique, and when Smith takes the spotlight, there's something indefinably more potent about his musical choices. Perhaps it has to do with the difference between playing the blues and living them. DeFrancesco plays like he knows it; Smith plays like he means it.

That's not a slight to either—the fact that DeFrancesco is unquestionably the more capable player, but Smith the more evocative is simply indicative of the difference between someone still in his mid-30s with a greater set of interests, and someone who, in his 70s, spent a lifetime honing a specific set of skills. Still, sparks fly between the two, but in a good-natured, well-meaning kind of way that has nothing to do with competition and everything to do with egging each other on to greater heights.

Legacy is fitting as Smith's last recording, representing something of a mantle-passing work. Whether or not DeFrancesco, a player with his own reputation, goes on to forge a style as innovative as Smith's has yet to be determined.

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