Blue Note used the Manhattan Towers Hotel Ballroom in New York City for recording sessions in 1957–1958, while their recording engineer
Rudy Van Gelder was still using his parents' Hackensack, N.J. home studio to record artists.
House Party was the first of two Smith albums recorded on two dates, the second was Smith's next album
The Sermon!, released in 1959. Blue Note mainly used the Manhattan Towers ballroom for larger groups of musicians, or when New York was a more convenient location to record the artists involved. ==Reception==