Buster Smith

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Henry 'Buster' Smith , called Professor Smith (born August 24, 1904 in Alsdorf , Texas , † August 10, 1991 in Dallas ) was an American jazz musician ( saxophonist (alto, tenor), band leader and arranger of swing ).

Smith came from a musical family, his father played the guitar and his mother was a church organist. He is said to have played the family organ at the age of four and also learned to play guitar, alto saxophone and clarinet. He earned the money for his first clarinet by picking cotton (he is said to have plucked 2,000 pounds in five days for it) and was able to support his family with his work as a musician soon after moving to Dallas in 1922. He played with the Voodie White Trio in Dallas and from 1923 in “medicine shows”, where volume was particularly important. In 1925 Hot Lips Page heard him from the "Blue Devils", to whose sound he made a significant contribution. After Walter Page 1931 gave up the line of the band, he led them on with the singer Ernest Williams as "13 Original Blue Devils".

After the end of 1933 he changed a. a. with Lester Young to the band of Bennie Moten , where he complemented himself with Young on tenor saxophone. After Moten's death in 1935, he and Count Basie led the “Barons of Rhythm” octet at the Reno Club in Kansas City (with Walter Page, Hot Lips Page, Lester Young, Jack Washington), which Eddie Durham joined in 1936 (also as arranger ). In the mid-1930s he was Charlie Parker's mentor and teacher in Kansas City, and he got along well with Charlie Christian , whom he knew from Texas. Smith was not only a sought-after soloist, he was also a composer and arranger, for example. B. Moten (supposedly even a pre-form of the " One O 'Clock Jump " is from him). Smith did not accompany Basie to New York, but continued to work with his own band, the Paradise Orchestra , in the Midwest. When he later also went to New York, he arranged a. a. for Gene Krupa , Basie and Benny Carter . He played with Don Redman , Pete Johnson (on Jump for Joy in 1939, with Hot Lips Page) and Eddie Durham (1940) (also on recordings). In 1941 he returned to Texas, played in local bands, composed, arranged and taught. In 1959 he took his only recording under his own name in Fort Worth for Atlantic Records ("The legendary Buster Smith", new to Koch 1999). After a car accident in the 1960s, he had to give up his instrument. He switched to the bass guitar and played in a hotel band until the 1980s.

He can be seen in Bruce Rickers' 1980 documentary about the Kansas City jazz The Last of the Blue Devils .

proof

  1. ^ Frank Driggs / Chuck Haddix, Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop - A History. Oxford 2005; ISBN 0-19-530712-7 , pp. 165ff.

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personal data
SURNAME Smith, Buster
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, Henry Buster (full name); Professor Smith (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz musician
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Alsdorf , Texas
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1991
Place of death Dallas