"No heroin habit, no personal inconsistencies to make his life overly complicated and dramatic, no expatriation to Paris or religious fads to sell, no distinguishing anything. Johnny Smith lets his playing do the talking. No one ever played the guitar better. No album has ever been more about the music, and less about peripheral things. Now you know who Johnny Smith is, listen to him and hear the truth behind the myth which says "It's all about the music.""
The Greatest Guitarist Ever!
Andrew Oswald | 01/09/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I am a jazz guitarist , and can honestly say J.S. was the greatest who ever played, in my opinion"
Fantastic recording that needs to be re-mastered.
Andrew Oswald | Philadelphia | 11/14/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Nearly 50 years after its inception, this recording indeed stands the test of time. Technology has taken leaps and bounds and I think a re-master to make the earlier tracks as clean as the later tracks would be greatly appreciated. If so, I would not hesitate to call this an absolutely essential album."
Tight arrangements, expert playing, a gem of a program
Ian Muldoon | Coffs Harbour, NSW Australia | 11/29/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"If you appreciate the work of the early George Shearing Quintets, or Art Van Damme and his quintet work in the fifties, then you'll like this CD of 19 tracks. Johnny Smith was featured on one of Mr Van Damme's records if I recall correctly. But both Shearing and Van Damme, in appealing to a more popular market, could sometimes veer close to "cocktail music". There is no whiff of cocktails in the program on Moonlight in Vermont. Indeed, the drums, bass, piano combinations are uniformly powerful, and feature some of the masters of the "west coast" sound including Eddie Sanfranski. Even relatively less well known players such as Sanford Gold hold their own in some distinguished company - Stan Getz, Paul Quinichette, and Zoot Sims. Mr Smith is consistently superb and the music still sounds good after 50 years. This CD has SEVEN tracks additional to the original LP."