AMG Review of Live at Small's Paradise

Bruce Eder
All Music Guide

There's very little in the way of audience ambience or other interaction on this recording, done at a club in Harlem, but it does have all of the other expected virtues of a concert recording. The tension of a live performance runs throughout its ten songs, which include the most soulful rendition of "Blowin' in the Wind" this side of Sam Cooke's version, and a King Curtis vocal on "Road Runner." Not as important a document as Live at Fillmore West, which came considerably later in Curtis' career, but not to be ignored, either.