When I play Jimmy Smith in my car while riding and other cars come beside me at the stop light and the driver asks me who is that? I say it's God. They say what, who is that? I say God! They look bewildered so I bring them down to earth. It's Jimmy Smith, then they smile and relax, happy to it was indeed God playing in the persona of Jimmy Smith. I wish somebody would hep me tonight. This music goes so deep down into the morrow of the bones of my childhood in West Oakland, there is no other sound that was pervasive in the clubs, cafes, poolhalls, restaurants, night clubs. This was the music I heard as I sold Jet and Ebony magazines on 7th Street and the backstreets, sidestreets, socalled lower bottom, i.e. pine street was the last street in west Oakland, i.e., the ho' stroll, but in my childhood and teenage years I hustled Jet, Ebony and other black newspapers, including the Chicago Defender, Pittsburg Courier, Detroit Black Dispatch, et al. But the Hammond B3 guided my way through the streets of my turf that I walked without fear.
--Marvin X