Jimmy Smith and Eddie Harris probably made about a hundred recordings between them, but they only recorded together once, a performance captured on All The Way Live (Milestone, 1996) at a San Francisco nightspot in August 1981.

Here Smith and Harris don't play together in a band so much as they're two soloists -- Smith of course on Hammond B-3 and saxophonist Harris on electrified tenor -- tethered together by a drummer (Kenny Dixon). All The Way Live hardly sounds like two old codgers limply noodling around lukewarm blues. Harris drives the opening "You'll See" all over the map, exhaustively examining small phrases from multiple angles and then expanding them into possible directions, and sounds very much like a serving of Sonny Rollins with an extra side of funk.

Smith's gravelly stage patter comes off just as cool: "We're just doing what we're gonna do up here, you know," he confides after introducing Harris, and then dryly notes, "Now we're gonna do something funky" to introduce his timeless blues shuffle "Eight Counts For Rita," where Harris' electrified tenor proves most electrifying. Both principals burn through Smith's trademark "The Sermon," which brings the curtain down.

This is the only Eddie Harris title in the Concord catalog but Smith recorded several titles for Milestone, including the big-band Prime Time (1989) and Sum Serious Blues ('93), plus two sets for Concord Jazz with Joey DeFrancesco: The well-titled Incredible! live from the San Francisco Jazz Festival (1989), and its studio follow-up Legacy (2005).

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  When You're Smilin'

  Joey DeFrancesco, from Incredible!
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  I've Got My Mojo Workin'

  Joey DeFrancesco With Jimmy Smith, from Le ...

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