Joe Smith (musician)

Joe " Fox " Smith, Joseph C. Smith, ( born June 28, 1902 in Ripley, Ohio; † December 2, 1937 in New York City ) was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist -.

Life and work

Smith comes from a family of trumpeters; the father played trumpet in a brass band, one of his brothers, Russell Smith was also jazz trumpeter.

Smith began his musical career in small bands in Missouri and came around 1920 for the first time to New York City. The following year he was in Chicago at the Black Swan Masters. Then he accompanied a variety of well-known blues singers, among them Mamie Smith ( 1922-23 ), Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith, whose favorite trumpet player he was. He also belonged to Billy Paige's Broadway Syncopators. After he was the musical director of the band of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, he joined in 1925, as his brother, the orchestra of Fletcher Henderson, where he was one of the star soloists. He was the successor and colleague of famous musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Rex Stewart and Tommy Ladnier. From 1929 he belonged until 1934 to McKinney 's Cotton Pickers. In the thirties he became ill mentally, after seeing how drummer Kaiser Marshall in Hear Me Talkin 'to Ya told, had in 1930 caused in a car accident while under the influence of the death of a friend, fellow musician ( singer George " Fathead " Thomas ). He lived in Kansas City ( where he worked briefly for Bennie Moten, Kaiser Marshall, McKinney and Fletcher Henderson ), later spent several years in New York's Bellevue Hospital and eventually died from tuberculosis.

Appreciation

Gunther Schuller described Smith as one of the most interesting trumpeter of the twenties, because he combined instrumental technical mastery with an emotional and lyrical style, as they were little known in the early days of jazz. After Reclams Jazz Encyclopedia he had " the most lyrical and gesangsähnlichsten tone among all trumpeters ". Scott Yanow, according to he was often compared with Bix Beiderbecke. Smith was also an absolute master on the stuffed trumpet, which he calls the " wawa - mute" well versed technically, but in a less " earthy ", " down home " blues style played as Joe Oliver, as well as on the open instrument being played. His best "open " Soli enough for fans of traditional jazz while quite the lyrical beauty of the best solos of Beiderbecke zoom (example: Fletcher Henderson The Stampede from 1926, on which Smith plays the middle solo, this two Rex Stewart solos contrasts at the beginning and at the end). Fletcher Henderson described Smith as " the most soulful [ soulful ] trumpeter, he had ever known ."

Lexical entries

• Wolf Kampmann Reclams Jazz Encyclopedia, Stuttgart: Reclam 2003, ISBN 3-15-010528-5
• Martin Kunzler jazz lexicon. Vol 2, Reinbek: Rowohlt 2002, 2002 ISBN 3-499-16513-9 Reinbek