Walk on the Wild Side - Jimmy Smith Tune

Okay, so I'm going to do a little jam here on "Walk on the Wild Side," a Jimmy Smith tune. Just to show you a couple of different tones you can get on the M series here.

Overview of the Jam

• During that little jam there, I used a few different sounds:
  • Started on second harmonic: The important thing with that track is that we had reverb on. Loads of reverb that's coming out of the internal speaker there on the right-hand side.

Playing with Reverb

• You can play with the reverb to really bring out what you're doing. You get a trail on every note, allowing you to stretch out.

• Second Harmonic: With that kind of Booker T setting, I had vibrato on.

  • It's chorus vibrato, different from the C3. It can get a bit crazy.
  • If you have a lot on, it's really noticeable, like a small celeste, kind of crazy vibrato on this instrument.

Sound Combinations

• There are a lot of nut sounds you can get.
• The combination of:
  • Percussion
  • Vibrato
  • Reverb

Switching Tones

• I used that with fast Leslie as well, which obviously gives a different sound.

• Then I switched to a thinner sound and brought a bit of that in.

• Drawbars: There's a pad on the bottom there, 8 and 4 drawbars.

  • On an M100, this would be the bottom two drawbars.
  • I'm using the reverb as a bit of a tool when changing between chords.

Cool Effects

• You really get that kind of trail on the end of it.
• It's just a cool effect, adding a bit of punctuation in the tune when you're playing alone like this.

Final Idea

• Then, what I did was play the melody as a big kind of phrase chord in a thin setting.
  • You can use a piano country-style roll in those pullback phrases.
  • The use of the Leslie and drawbars together creates a very cool effect.

There's a lot of stuff to try out here, many different tones. I hope that was helpful!