Stuff Smith

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Stuff Smith
Stuff Smith by William P. Gottlieb
Stuff Smith by William P. Gottlieb
Background information
Birth nameHezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith
Born(1909-08-14)August 14, 1909
Portsmouth, Ohio, U.S.
Died(1967-09-25)September 25, 1967 (aged 58)
Munich, Germany
GenresJazz
Occupation(s)Musician, singer
Instrument(s)Violin

Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith (August 14, 1909 – September 25, 1967), better known as Stuff Smith, was an American jazz violinist.[1] He is well known for the song "If You're a Viper" (the original title was "You'se a Viper").

Smith was, along with Stéphane Grappelli, Michel Warlop, Svend Asmussen, Ray Nance and Joe Venuti, one of jazz music's preeminent violinists of the swing era.

Biography

He was born in

Onyx Club starting in 1935,[1] and also with Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and later, Sun Ra.[1]

After being signed to Vocalion Records in 1936, he had a hit with "I'se a Muggin'" and was billed as Stuff Smith and His Onyx Club Boys. He recorded for Vocalion in 1936, Decca in 1937, and Varsity in 1939–1940.

He is featured in several numbers on the Nat King Cole Trio album, After Midnight.

Part of Smith's performance at what is considered the first outdoor jazz festival, the 1938

Randall's Island, turned up unexpectedly on audio engineer William Savory's discs, which were self-recorded off the radio at the time, then long-sequestered. Some newsreel footage survived but no audio of the festival was thought to have survived until the discs were acquired in 2012 by Loren Schoenberg, executive director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.[2]

Smith was critical of the bebop movement, although his own style represented a transition between swing and bebop. He is credited as being the first violinist to use electric amplification techniques on a violin. He was one of the writers of the song "It's Wonderful" (1937), which was often performed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald throughout their careers. Smith moved to Copenhagen in 1965, performed actively in Europe, and died in Munich in 1967.[1] He is buried at Klakring Cemetery in Jutland, Denmark.

Stuff Smith is one of the 57 jazz musicians photographed in the 1958 portrait

A Great Day in Harlem
.

Discography

Stuff Smith at

AllMusic

As leader

  • Stuff Smith (Verve, 1957)
  • Dizzy Gillespie and Stuff Smith (Verve, 1957)
  • Have Violin, Will Swing (Verve, 1958)
  • Cat On A Hot Fiddle (Verve, 1959)
  • Sweet Swingin' Stuff (20th Century Fox, 1959)
  • Cat on a Hot Fiddle (Verve, 1960)
  • Herb Ellis & Stuff Smith Together! (Epic, 1963)
  • Stuff and Steff with
    Barclay
    , 1966)
  • Violin Summit with Stephane Grappelli, Svend Asmussen, Jean-Luc Ponty, (SABA, 1967)
  • Black Violin (MPS, 1972)
  • Violins No End with Stephane Grappelli (Pablo, 1984)
  • The 1943 Trio (Circle, 1988)
  • Live at the Montmartre (Storyville, 1988)
  • Live in Paris (France's Concert, 1965/1988)
  • Hot Violins with Svend Asmussen, Kenny Drew Trio, Poul Olsen (Storyville, 1991)
  • Stuff Smith – 1939-1944 compilation (
    Classics
    , 1999)
  • Late Woman Blues with Henri Chaix Trio (Storyville, 2001)
  • The Complete 1944 Rosenkrantz Apartment Transcription Duets (AB Fable, 2002)
  • 1944-46: Studio, Broadcast, Concert & Apartment Performances (AB Fable, 2002)
  • 1944 & 1945 Performances (AB Fable, 2004)
  • Swingin' Stuff (Storyville, 2005)
  • Five Fine Violins: Celebrating 100 Years (Storyville, 2010)
  • 1937 (AB Fable, 2010)

As sideman

With Ella Fitzgerald

  • Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook
     Volume One (Verve, 1975)
  • The Duke Ellington Songbook, Volume Two: The Small Group Sessions (Verve, 1982)

With Dizzy Gillespie

With Sun Ra

With others

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 1-85227-937-0
    .
  2. ^ "Storied Trove of 1930s Jazz Is Acquired by Museum", by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, August 16, 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-16 (Access to this reference requires a subscription)
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