another sad passing...

Before Jimmy Smith placed his nimble fingers on the Hammond B-3 organ, the instrument was relegated to the margins of jazz culture.

Though the ebullient Fats Waller taught the instrument to swing and the less celebrated Wild Bill Davis coaxed it toward pop sophistication, neither managed to give the organ much prominence or credibility in jazz.

But Mr. Smith--who died Tuesday of apparent natural causes at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., at age 79--irreversibly placed the Hammond B-3 in the spotlight. Doubly blessed with a quicksilver technique and an unusually advanced harmonic imagination, he invented a brilliant new way of addressing the organ.