High Street/Windham Hill's
Organ-Ized is nothing less than a salute to the classic Hammond B3 organ by some of the preeminent mainstream practitioners of the instrument in the late '90s. Surprises are hardly the modus operandi here -- it's all soul-jazz, performed with love but not a lot of risk. While this might not showcase the idiosyncrasies of the instrument, that's fine, because this delivers exactly what most Hammond diehards want -- funky grooves and licks from the likes of
Joey DeFrancesco,
John Medeski,
Art Neville,
Michael Omartian,
Jimmy Smith,
Reuben Wilson, and
Mike Weaver, among others. Some cuts cook more than others, but there are no duff tracks here -- only
Jack McDuff. For organ-heads looking for a little more of what they love, this is not a bad sampler to sample. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine