Jabbo Smith

Cladys " Jabbo " Smith ( born December 24, 1908 in Pembroke, Georgia, † January 16, 1991 in New York City ) was an American jazz trumpeter.

Life

Jabbo Smith's father died in 1912. Was six years old, he was raised by his mother in an orphanage in Charleston (South Carolina ) where, where he learned to play the trumpet and trombone. With ten years already, he toured with the school band of the home, the Jenkins Orphanage band across the country. At sixteen, he left the Institute to become a professional musician. He first played with bands in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) and Atlantic City (New Jersey ) before he moved to Manhattan in 1925. 1928 emerged the first recordings. In the same year he played in the band of pianist James P. Johnson. Johnson's band broke up in the same year in Chicago, where Smith spent the next years. Here Records created in 1929 for the Brunswick label with his own band Jabbo Smith 's Rhythm Aces those recordings that justify his fame to this day in jazz circles, in which, inter alia, also the banjo player Ikey Robinson participated. He also participated in recordings of Charlie Johnson and Duke Ellington Band (1927 ).

In the 1930s, he moved to Milwaukee and only appeared occasionally as a musician on ( inter alia with Claude Hopkins ). His livelihood, he played as an employee of a car rental company. In the late 1960s he managed a comeback in which he tours - led up in the 1980s to Great Britain and France - in addition to regular appearances in New York shows.

Importance

Jabbo Smith, though now largely forgotten, the late 1920s was very successful and known as the most serious rival of Louis Armstrong. In fact, Smith's recordings are on the same time resulting pieces of Armstrong regarding technology and imaginative play in anything. Also significant is its impact on the play of the young Roy Eldridge. The fact that Smith's career so exceedingly modest was given his outstanding talent, can be explained by several factors. Firstly, alcohol and self-esteem at an early age played a major role ( at the age of 20 he was one of the absolute top earners among jazz musicians in New York and Chicago ). When offering from Duke Ellington to join his band, he laughed this in the face because he Ellington "only" $ 90 a week offered, instead of 150, which Smith then earned ( were $ 90 in 1928, an absolute top salary for a jazz musician ). On the other hand, it was his just for that time modern, fluid style, the little received by the audience (now regarded as a classic " Rhythm Aces " recordings from 1929 sold poorly ). The audience began around the Depression era, to be coming to a softer, sweeter style, and Smith - in contrast to Louis Armstrong - do not fit at that. He also spent many years away from the musical jazz hotspots of his time, New York and Chicago, and cutting himself for personal reasons rather in places like Newark and Milwaukee through.