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Hezekiah Le...
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Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith (September 14, 1909 - September 25, 1967), better known as Stuff Smith, was a jazz violinist.
Smith was, along with Stéphane Grappelli and Joe Venuti, one of jazz music's preeminent violinists of the swing era. He was born in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1909 and studied violin with his father. Smith cited Louis Armstrong as his primary influence and inspiration to play jazz, and like Armstrong, was a vocalist as well as instrumentalist. In the 1920s he played in Texas as a member of Alphonse Trent's band. After moving to New York he had a regular gig with his sextet at the Onyx Club starting in 1935 and also performed with Coleman Hawkins as well as with younger musicians such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and later, Sun Ra.
After being signed to Vocalion in 1936, he had a big hit with "I'se A Muggin'" and was billed as Stuff Smith and his Onyx Club Boys. He recorded for Vocalion in 1936, Decca in 1937 and Varsity in 1939-1940.
Part of Smith's performance at what is considered the first outdoor jazz festival, the 1938 Carnival of Swing on Randall's Island, turned up unexpectedly on audio engineer William Savory's discs, which were self-recorded off the radio at the time, then long-sequestered. Some newsreel footage had survived, but no audio of the festival had been believed to have, until the discs were acquired and studied by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, in the person of its executive director Loren Schoenberg, in 2010.[1]
Smith was critical of the bebop movement, although his own style represented a transition between swing and bebop. He is credited as being the first violinist to use electric amplification techniques on a violin. He contributed to the song "It's Wonderful" (1938) often performed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald throughout their careers. Smith moved to Copenhagen in 1965, performed actively in Europe, and died in Munich in 1967. He is buried at Klakring Cemetery in Jutland, Denmark.
Stuff Smith is one of the 57 jazz musicians photographed in the 1958 portrait A Great Day in Harlem.
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fiddlestixgirl24 favorited a video
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1. Big Wig in the Wigwam - 2:40
2. It's Up to You - 2:56
3. I've Got You U...
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1. Big Wig in the Wigwam - 2:40
2. It's Up to You - 2:56
3. I've Got You Under My Skin - 2:46
4. Crescendo in Drums - 2:47
5. Joshua - 3:21
6. Humoresque - 2:32
7. I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You - 2:56
8. Minuet in Swing - 2:18
9. Red Jumps - 2:25
10. Melody in F - 2:25
11. She's Funny That Way - 2:58
12. To a Wild Rose - 2:30
13. Bugle Call Rag - 2:13
14. Desert Sands - 3:20
15. Cinquantaine - 2:09
16. Blues in Mary's Flat - 2:46
17. Blues in Stuff's Flat - 2:55
18. I Got Rhythm - 3:07
19. Sweet Lorraine - 2:45
20. Midway - 2:12
21. Look at Me - 2:52
22. Skip It - 2:25
23. Stop-Look - 2:58
24. Don't You Think - 2:52
25. Desert Sands - 2:42
Born: August 14, 1909 | Died: September 25, 1967 | Instrument: Violin
Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, on August 14, 1909, but grew up in Cleveland. His father taught him to play the violin and encouraged him to study classical music. Smith took some music lessons but switched to jazz after hearing Louis Armstrong play the trumpet; Armstrong influenced Smith's own style at a fundamental level. Although he had received a scholarship to study at Johnson C. Smith University, Smith opted for a musical life instead. At age 15 he joined a touring minstrel show, the Aunt Jemima Revue.
In 1926 Smith joined the Dallas-based band of Alphonso Trent; this was one of the so-called "territory" bands that grew from the improvisatory and bluesy roots of jazz rather than moving toward the more composed and arranged style of the eastern seaboard. He stayed with Trent for four years, moving briefly to the band of Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton but returning after becoming frustrated that his violin could not be heard over the dense sound of Morton's group. In 1930 Smith formed his own band in Buffalo, New York.
During his Buffalo years Smith cast one eye on New York, and he got there in late 1935 and 1936 after he composed a scat-like novelty song called "I'se a Muggin'. The song caught on, and musician-impresario Dick Stabile booked Smith and his band, which now included drummer "Cozy" Cole, into the Onyx Club on 52nd Street. Rechristened Stuff Smith and His Onyx Club Boys, the band was a successful fixture of the New York scene for several years. The main attraction was Smith himself, attired in a worn-out top hat and sometimes sporting a parrot on his shoulder. Smith and his band also recorded several sides for the Vocalion label in 1936. "You'se a Viper," was covered by vocalist "Fats" Waller in 1943 and enjoyed renewed popularity in the counterculture of the '60s and '70s.
He pioneered the use of the amplified violin, and he developed a bluesy, speech-inflected style that was quite distinct from the European-influenced approaches of Swing Era violinists Joe Venuti, Stephane Grappelli, and Eddie South.
In 1938 Smith appeared in the film 'Swing Street,' taking a hiatus from live performing. That took the momentum out of his New York career, and he dissolved his band after a series of disagreements with players and other industry figures. Smith bounced back with a trio that performed in New York (sometimes at the Onyx) and Chicago in the 1940s, and he briefly took over Fats Waller's band after Waller's death in 1943. A series of trio recordings was made in 1943 and 1944, but by the late 1940s Smith's career seemed to be in decline. In the 1950s, to make things worse, Smith suffered from health problems brought on by years of heavy drinking.
He moved to California and continued to perform on what was said to be a Guarneri violin. Among his fans was big-time jazz producer Norman Granz, who teamed Smith with bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Oscar Peterson for a recording on the Verve label in 1957. It was a measure of the originality of Smith's style that his playing fit as well with this new generation of players as it had with the swing bands of the 1930s. Smith made several albums for Verve and continued to record until shortly before his death.
Smith found that European audiences were especially appreciative of his music. He settled in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1965 and made several recordings in Europe. Smith fell seriously ill on tour in Paris. Doctors placed him on the critical list; but Smith recovered and continued to perform. He died in Munich, Germany, on September 25, 1967, and was remembered, as "the cat that took the apron-strings off the fiddle."
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