Pioneering jazz organist Jimmy Smith has died in Arizona. He “irreversibly placed the Hammond B-3 in the spotlight. Doubly blessed with a quicksilver technique and an unusually advanced harmonic imagination, he invented a brilliant new way of addressing the organ. Emerging as a musical force in the mid-1950s, Mr. Smith brought unprecedented virtuosity to the instrument, inviting comparisons to such bebop piano giants as Bud Powell and Art Tatum.”