Jimmy Smith: Walk on the Wild Side

Unrelated to rocker Lou Reed's raunchy 1972 hit of the same name, Jimmy Smith's cover of Elmer Bernstein's movie theme from Walk on the Wild Side (1962) was a smash in both single and album incarnations. Oliver Nelson's swaggering arrangementonce past a bewildering sleigh-bell introseduces us with the seedy allure of forbidden fruit minus the consequences. Smith doesn't enter until midway, but from that point on it's dynamite. This track made Jimmy Smith an overnight sensation after years of schlepping his Hammond B-3 around the Chitlin Circuit in a secondhand hearse. Good things come to those who wail.