A 24-measure blues with a fun sound. This song is a classic example of that mid-60s soul-jazz style, with a shuffle groove and snappy blues-scale melody. In this long-meter form, the turnaround changes have room for a little modulation to D♭ and back to E♭. The last two measures of the melody chorus are a break, with a pickup that connects to the next chorus; this break is also played in the solos. As indicated in the lead sheet, on the recording the break of the out melody leads to a vamp and fade out on E♭7.
Our lead sheet starts right on the head; as you can hear in the audio clip, the recorded arrangement adds a two-measure brass section pickup before tenor saxophonist James Moody comes in with the melody. Moody's phrasing is slightly different from the written melody; on the out head, the trumpets play the melody as written.
The melody of this song covers a surprisingly wide range. Our tenor sax lead sheet is in the register that Moody plays, as is the E♭ lead sheet. We also have a trumpet lead sheet that mostly shows the melody in the same written range as the tenor (which is where the trumpets play it throughout the out head), with some relatively high passages indicated "optional 8vb." The last eight measures are an octave lower until the final measure of the break, as the line here connects back to the beginning of the head. Our C treble and C bass clef (an octave lower) lead sheets follow the same format as for trumpet though without "optional 8vb".
Smack-A-Mac is one of many Tom McIntosh compositions recorded by James Moody. At the time of the "Moody And The Brass Figures" sessions, McIntosh was a member of the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Mel Lewis had also played on "Great Day," another Moody album featuring a brass section arranged by McIntosh, recorded in 1963.
Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, trombonist and arranger/composer Tom McIntosh studied voice at the Peabody Conservatory in 1944. In 1950 he was stationed in Germany with an Army band, where he first encountered reedman James Moody, who was touring Europe with Coleman Hawkins. Nine years later, after graduating from the Juillard School in NYC, Mac was hired by Moody to play in his sextet. The sextet became a septet for the first Moody recording, simply titled "James Moody," recorded in Chicago in August, 1959, for the Argo label. This album also contained Tom's first recorded composition With Malice Toward None, which Tom arranged as well. Read more...
