Geechie Smith

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Vernon "Geechie" Smith (* around 1915 as Vernon L. Smith ; † unknown) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues musician ( trumpet , vocals ).

Live and act

Geechie Smith, who came from Tulsa , Oklahoma, played with Hal Singer and with Ernie Fields and His Orchestra from the late 1930s . In the post-war period he worked in Los Angeles a. a. with Jesse Price , Percy Mayfield (“Two Years of Torture”), Ella Mae Morse (“Early in the Morning”), Lee Young , Jimmy Witherspoon and Jay McShann , as well as accompanists for R&B vocalists such as Crown Prince Waterford (“Eatin 'Watermelon'), Big Sis Andrews and Kitty White . Under his own name ( Geechie Smith and His Orchester) he presented several singles in 1946/47 such as “Got You on My Mind”, “Geneva Sue”, “Let Your Pride Be Your Guide”, “T-Town Jump” and a cover version of the then Louis Jordan hit “ Let the Good Times Roll ".

In Smith's band played musicians such as Maxwell Davis , Joe Lutcher , Freddie Simon , Fletcher Smith , Louis Speiginer , Herman Washington (bass) and Minor Robinson (drums). As a member of Julia Lee & Her Boy Friends, he had a number one hit in the Race Records charts in 1948 with "King Size Papa". That same year he became manager and musical director of Paul and Harry Rubin's Cricket Club on Washington Avenue in Los Angeles, where Horace Henderson and Geechie Smith each formed the house band. In the early 1950s he worked with Clifford "Fat Man" Blivens & The Johnny Otis Band ("Korea Blues"), with Helen Humes & Dexter Gordon ("Ain't Gonna Quit You Baby"), at Charlie Barnet and in 1953 still with Earl Hines and His Orchestra & Johnny Hartman . Smith worked as a photographer in later years before retiring in the 1990s. The discographer Tom Lord lists his participation in 26 recording sessions between 1939 and 1951.

Discographic notes

  • Geechie Smith / Crown Prince Waterford: Swingin 'Small Combos KC Style, Vol. 2 (ed. 2005)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, Oxford, etc. 1999; ISBN 978-0-19-532000-8
  2. ^ Roy Porter: There and Back . San Francisco: Bayou Press 1991, p. 44.
  3. ^ Swing Time 236
  4. ^ Gregg Akkerman: The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story Lanham: Scaregrow Press 2012 [Studies in Jazz, No. 68], p. 291.
  5. ↑ Tom Lord: The Jazz Discography (online, accessed June 17, 2019)
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Geechie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, Vernon; Smith, Vernon L. (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American rhythm & blues and jazz musician (trumpet, vocals)
DATE OF BIRTH around 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Tulsa , Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH 20th century or 21st century