Louis Smith (musician)

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Edward Louis Smith (born May 20, 1931 in Memphis (Tennessee) , † August 20, 2016 in Ann Arbor ) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player and composer who taught for much of his life.

Live and act

Smith began playing the trumpet as a teenager, initially heavily influenced by Fats Navarro . After graduating from high school, he studied on a scholarship at Tennessee State University and then moved to the University of Michigan ; During this time he played with guest musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie , Miles Davis , Thad Jones and Billy Mitchell . In January 1954 he was drafted into the United States Army . After his release in late 1955, he taught at Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta and also played hardbop in local clubs. a with Cannonball Adderley , Kenny Dorham , Donald Byrd , Lou Donaldson , Phineas Newborn , Zoot Sims and Philly Joe Jones .

In 1956 he had the opportunity to take part in recordings by Kenny Burrell on his album Swingin . On February 9, 1958, he led his first own session for the small Boston label Transition , where he was accompanied by "Buckshot La Funke" (aka Cannonball Adderley ), Duke Jordan and Tommy Flanagan , as well as Doug Watkins and Art Taylor .
The Transition label disappeared from the market before Smith 'album could appear; Blue Note boss Alfred Lion bought the master tapes from Transition and signed a record deal with Smith and released the session under the title Here Comes Louis Smith , from which a single entitled "Tribute To Brownie " c / w " Stardust " was released .

In the course of 1958, the trumpeter played two more Blue Note sessions - Kenny Burrell's Blue Lights and Booker Little's Booker Little 4 and Max Roach, and was able to record another album under his own name on March 30, which was released as Smithville . His teammates here were Charlie Rouse , Sonny Clark , Paul Chambers and again Art Taylor. In July 1958 Smith appeared as a member of the Horace Silver Quintet at the Newport Jazz Festival .

Smith then retired as an active musician, went back to Ann Arbor (Michigan) and from then on taught full-time at the University of Michigan and the nearby Ann Arbor Public School . It wasn't until the late 1970s that he had a brief comeback with several albums for SteepleChase Records , on which u. a. George Coleman , Harold Mabern , Junior Cook , Roland Hanna , Sam Jones and Billy Hart participated.
After another hiatus of over ten years, he went back to the studio for SteepleChase in early 1990 and recorded a number of other albums, Ballads for Lulu (1990) with Jim McNeely , Strike up the Band (1991) with Vincent Herring and Kevin Hays and finally in 1993, as a reminiscence of his time at Horace Silver, the album Silvering with Chicago veterans Von Freeman , Jodie Christian and Wilbur Campbell . 1997 appeared his last album There Goes My Heart ; In 2005, Louis Smith suffered a stroke that deprived him of his speech.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary (English)
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, Edward Louis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz trumpeter and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Memphis (Tennessee)
DATE OF DEATH 20th August 2016
Place of death Ann Arbor