When I talked to one of my keyboard mentors Robert Walter, I asked him who he would recommend I listen to. The first person he mentioned before anyone else was not Chick Corea nor Bill Evans. It was organist Jimmy Smith.
I slowly grew to understand just how much of a force Jimmy was for blues and jazz and the Hammond B-3 organ. He was among the first to tackle the organ-guitar-drum trio. His albums, such as The Sermon, Back at the Chicken Shack, and Root Down are still considered timeless classics today for many aspiring musicians, and helped spawn a revolution in how the hammond organ could be used.
More great musicians and composers today, some I know personally, site Jimmy Smith as a major musical influence and hold him up high as an icon and a legend in blues and jazz.
He passed on two days ago at the age of 76. R.I.P. Jimmy Smith.