Cliff Smalls
Clifton Arnold "Cliff" Smalls (born March 3, 1918 in Charleston (South Carolina) , † 2008 ) was an American jazz bandleader, trombonist, pianist, arranger and composer.
Growing up in Charleston, Smalls learned the piano and organ from his father, who played the instruments in their Baptist church. While still in high school, he joined the Carolina Cotton Pickers as a pianist and toured with them. He studied piano, music theory and composition at the Kansas City Conservatory and was a substitute pianist and trombonist with Earl Hines from 1942 to 1946 . He also played and recorded with the Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra in Detroit, with Billy Eckstine , Louis Jordan , Earl Bostic (e.g. on his hit Flamingo 1950), Erskine Hawkins , Lucky Millinder , Bennie Green (Bennie Green with Art Farmer 1956) and Cab Calloway .
He was musical director and arranger for Eartha Kitt , Ella Fitzgerald (e.g. Newport Jazz Festival at Carnegie Hall ), Sy Oliver (with whom he recorded in 1973 and whom he accompanied for ten years as a pianist in the Rainbow Room in New York), Sammy Davis Junior, Smokey Robinson , Clyde McPhatter and worked with Brook Benton , Dinah Washington and Gerald Wilson .
In 1979 he recorded the solo album The Man I Love . In the movie The Cotton Club by Francis Ford Coppola , he played in a cameo a piano player.
Most recently he directed a septet in Brooklyn. He also worked as a teacher for young jazz musicians.
literature
- Jack McCray Charleston Jazz , Arcadia Publishing, 2007, p. 64
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Smalls, Cliff |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Smalls, Clifton Arnold |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 3, 1918 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Charleston, South Carolina |
| DATE OF DEATH | 2008 |