"And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find"
About this Quote
You can hear the afterburn of discovery in Jimmy Smiths breathless loop: he finds his sound, repeats it like he cant quite believe it, then tells you how fast it happened. Two and a half weeks is the detail that makes the brag believable. Its not the hazy myth of an artist "always knowing"; its craft, obsession, and a deadline-driven kind of hunger. He clocks the breakthrough the way a working musician clocks a gig: not in years of suffering, but in the exact span it took to lock in a voice.
The phrase "found my sound" does more than claim originality. It frames identity as something you locate, not something youre born with. That matters in a culture that romanticizes genius. Smiths version is closer to problem-solving: you hunt, you test, you listen back, you adjust. The repetition has a funny, almost manic quality, like someone replaying the moment they finally solved the puzzle and now wants you to feel the rush.
Then comes the gearhead flourish: "pulled out all the stops". Its an organists idiom, literally about drawbars and registers, and metaphorically about going all-in. He isnt talking about tasteful restraint; hes talking about maximum color, maximum risk, maximum self. The subtext is competitive, too: once he had a signature, he wasnt going to ration it. In a scene where being heard can be the whole battle, Smiths line reads like a declaration of arrival: I found the thing that makes me me, and I turned it up until nobody could miss it.
The phrase "found my sound" does more than claim originality. It frames identity as something you locate, not something youre born with. That matters in a culture that romanticizes genius. Smiths version is closer to problem-solving: you hunt, you test, you listen back, you adjust. The repetition has a funny, almost manic quality, like someone replaying the moment they finally solved the puzzle and now wants you to feel the rush.
Then comes the gearhead flourish: "pulled out all the stops". Its an organists idiom, literally about drawbars and registers, and metaphorically about going all-in. He isnt talking about tasteful restraint; hes talking about maximum color, maximum risk, maximum self. The subtext is competitive, too: once he had a signature, he wasnt going to ration it. In a scene where being heard can be the whole battle, Smiths line reads like a declaration of arrival: I found the thing that makes me me, and I turned it up until nobody could miss it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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