Bobby Timmons - Four Classic Albums (This Here Is Bobby Timmons / Soul Time / Easy Does It / Sweet and Soulful Sounds) (2026 Digitally Remastered) (2026)

Born in Philadelphia in 1935, his early influences include Red Garland and Ahmad Jamal. Bobby Timmons spent a couple of years as a sideman with Art Blakey between 1959-1961 appearing on over a dozen albums. During a short break from Blakey he joined Cannonball Adderley’s band where he would introduce a couple of his key compositions Dat Dere and This Here. Add to that probably his most famous composition Moanin’ which he would perform with Blakey, one can see what a fine composer Timmons was. These three classic jazz standards can all be heard in their original form on our first selection, Bobby’s debut album “This Here Is Bobby Timmons”. They also point to the emergence of what became known as soul jazz in the late 1950s and 1960s with players like Les McCann, Ramsey Lewis and Benny Green, a style very much linked to the piano and composing style of Bobby Timmons. They are also a reminder of what an under-rated jazzman Timmons was! On “This Here” Bobby is joined by Jimmy Cobb on drums while on “Soul Time” Blakey himself joins Bobby alongside Blue Mitchell on trumpet. Tragically Bobby Timmons was another jazz casualty dying at the ever so young age of 38 years from cirrhosis, a result of a lifetime of drugs and alcohol. Another terrible waste of a true jazz giant.

As usual at the end of our overview we list a number of similar artists who can be found on AVID labels. However during the writing of this piece we noticed just how many of the artists in our catalogue have featured Bobby Timmons as a sideman! And so after our list of albums by jazz pianists available at AVID (see below), we also have another list of great jazz names who feature Bobby Timmons as a sideman. We have to say it’s an awesome list which of course says much more about how fellow jazzmen saw and respected Timmons than to our good taste in including them in our catalogue!