Stuff
Smith (Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith) was an American jazz violinist, singer, bandleader, and
composer born (in Portsmouth, Ohio) on August 14, 1909. Smith was the first jazz violinist to use an
amplified (electric) violin. However, as
were jazz violinists Eddie South and Johnny Frigo, he was somewhat overshadowed
by Joe Venuti and Stephane Grappelli. As
far as I know, he only studied violin with his father, beginning at age 6 or 7. Another interesting thing about Smith is that
he is buried in Denmark. He took part -
along with Duke Ellington and Count Basie - in the very first outdoor jazz
festival – that was in May, 1938, in New York.
The festival was a huge success even though it ran for less than six
hours. It has been said that his sound
was not smooth and pretty but his rhythmic drive, intensity, and inventiveness
more than made up for that. The same
thing was said of classical violinist Bronislaw Huberman. Smith began playing publicly with his family’s
band when he was 12 years old. He
attended Johnson Smith University in North Carolina but left at age 15 - he
played professionally from that age forward.
From 1926 to 1928 (one source says 1927 to 1930), Smith was a member of
Alphonse Trent’s group. Trent was a
well-known bandleader whose band played in the finest hotels in the Southern
U.S. Smith was 19 years old. Afterward, he free-lanced, touring with pianist
Jelly Roll Morton, as well as other jazz musicians. Although he did a lot of traveling, his home
bases were Buffalo, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. He formed (with trumpet player Jonah Jones)
the Onyx Club Boys, a sextet (one source says it was a quintet) which played at
the Onyx Club, beginning in 1935, in New York City. Often, he would perform with a monkey on his
shoulder. It was a stuffed monkey, of
course. Smith knew Fritz Kreisler and it
has been said Kreisler admired his playing.
Smith recorded with a group called the Stuff Smith Trio, although the
other two members of the trio alternated, depending on the
instrumentation. One source states that
in 1943, he briefly took over Fats Waller’s band after Waller died. Smith played in a group with jazz pianist Billy
Taylor too. On June 9, 1945, he, Billy
Taylor, and Ted Sturgis (on bass) played a concert in New York’s famous Town
Hall - Benny Goodman had already played his historic jazz concert in Carnegie
Hall in 1938. In 1947, Smith joined Jazz
at the Philharmonic, a very large group of touring jazz musicians managed from
Los Angeles and put together by Norman Granz, a jazz impresario. It operated between 1944 and 1957. Smith’s playing has been described as
virtuosic, technically adventurous, and full of good humor. Joel Smirnoff (violinist with the Juilliard
String Quartet for many years) was quoted as saying that Stuff Smith’s point
“was not to be sophisticated, but to swing as hard as possible.” You can hear for yourself here. Smith recorded enough material (for the
Vocalion, Verve, Capitol, Decca, ASCH, and Varsity labels) to fill 6 or 7 of
today’s CDs. He recorded with Nat King
Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Jean-Luc Ponty, and
Stephane Grappelli, among other artists.
He also played alongside many other jazz artists; Sun Ra and Charlie
Parker are among them. Here is a Smith
video on YouTube. His violin hold and
posture were similar to that of French concert violinist Jacques Thibaud. For reasons unknown (to me), between 1946 and
1955, Smith did very little commercial recording or none at all. In 1958, Art Kane (Arthur Kanofsky) took a
photo (for ESQUIRE Magazine) of 57 jazz musicians in front of an apartment
building in Harlem (New York) titled A Great Day in Harlem. Smith is the only jazz violinist in that
photo. Mary Lou Williams, Marian
McPartland, Count Basie, Sonny Rollins, Thelonius Monk, Bud Freeman, Gene
Krupa, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Mingus, and Sahib Shihab are among the jazz
greats in that iconic portrait. In 1965,
Smith went to live in Copenhagen, Denmark.
For the rest of his life, he worked in Europe, sharing the stage with many
European jazz players, some of whom had come from the U.S. Stuff Smith died on September 25, 1967 (in
Munich, Germany) at age 58. A book by
William F. Lee titled American Big Bands says Stuff Smith died (on the same
date given above) in Chicago. Even a
great jazz violinist cannot die in two different places at the same time so I’m
guessing, since Smith is buried in Denmark, that Munich is the far likelier
place of death.
Joe Venuti (Giuseppe Venuti) was
an American jazz violinist, band leader, teacher, and arranger born (in
Philadelphia) on September 16, 1903.
Next to Stephane Grappelli, he is probably the world’s best known jazz
violinist, though there have been many others.
Their recordings accorded each a worldwide audience, but Grappelli worked
mostly in Europe as Venuti worked mostly in America. He began his violin studies at age 4 and
attended public schools in Philadelphia.
As far as anyone knows, although it is said he claimed to, he never
attended a music conservatory. He may
also not have graduated from High School.
According to several sources, he did study the violin intensely as a boy
and was a member of the James Campbell School Orchestra. Venuti may have also received instruction at
the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia, at which several members of the
Philadelphia Orchestra taught. In any
case, Venuti achieved a magnificent technique.
He also learned to play guitar, mandolin, and piano. His knowledge of classical music was expanded
through attendance at concerts in Philadelphia and New York. He began playing in public at age 15, in a
trio. At about this time, he formed a
friendship with Eddie Lang (Salvatore Massaro), the famous jazz guitarist. They had attended the same grammar school and
played in the school orchestra together but had never become professional associates
until their early teens. Their
recordings are now classics in the jazz world.
Venuti started his career in Detroit in March of 1924 with Jean
Goldkette’s (Graystone Ballroom) band. Venuti
also did some of his earliest recording work with this band. He was 21 years old. He returned to Philadelphia in September of
1925 but soon thereafter moved to New York.
In 1927, he joined Jimmy Dorsey, Frank Signorelli, and Eddie Lang to
form a band called the Blue Four in Atlantic City. However, Venuti was practically always a
freelance violinist, playing where it suited him. One of the bands he also played with during
this time was the Scranton Sirens. He
then joined Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra in 1929, playing in the 1930 film The
King of Jazz. For the next few years he
did a lot of recording with various artists and bands. In his career, he got to work with, among
many others, Tommy Dorsey, Dave McKenna, Manny Klein, Benny Goodman, Barrett
Deems, Bix Beiderbecke, Bucky Pizzarelli, Bud Freeman, Frank Signorelli, George
Barnes, Glenn Miller, Harold Arlen, Jack Teagarden, Joe Haymes, Jimmy Dorsey, Johnny
Prophet, Kay Starr, Earl Hines, Eddie Lang, Russ Morgan, Red Norvo, Ruth Robin,
Louis Prima, Lennie Hayton, Marian McPartland, Zoot Sims, Smith Ballew, and
Bing Crosby. His main recording labels
were Okeh, RCA Victor, Decca, and Bluebird. In 1935, after returning from Europe, Venuti
launched his own band and led a series of big and small bands after that. After serving briefly during the war, he moved
to California in 1945. In 1952 and 1953,
he played for the Kraft Music Hall on radio - Bing Crosby had served as
announcer, master of ceremonies, or host on that show between January, 1936 and
May, 1946. In 1963, Venuti settled in
Seattle, Washington, and continued working throughout the country, though more
and more sporadically. It has been said
that Venuti drifted into obscurity between 1936 and 1966 but that may be an
exaggeration. In 1967, he had a big
comeback with live shows and recordings, both here and in Europe. A performance at the 1968 Newport Jazz
Festival played a big role in that comeback.
YouTube has many of his video and audio files. Here is one and here is another. In them, you will see that Venuti is playing
what appears to be a cheap violin. It
appears that way because that’s what it is – he was known to play on very cheap
instruments. This YouTube audio file has
Venuti and Grappelli playing a duo – it is very easy to tell them apart. Venuti died (in Seattle) on August 14, 1978,
at age 74.
Johnny
Frigo (John Virgil Frigo) was an Italian jazz violinist, bass player, painter, and
poet born (in Chicago, USA) on December 27, 1916. He began his violin studies at age 7 and
received only three years of formal instruction. Out of necessity, he later learned to play
bass - by 1942, he was playing bass and violin in Chico Marx’ orchestra. He was 26 years old. During the Second World War, he played in New
York with Al Haig and Kai Winding. He
later went to Europe, too - it was part of his military service. From 1945 until 1947, he toured with Jimmy
Dorsey’s band. Jimmy Dorsey was Tommy
Dorsey’s brother. Soon after, Frigo
formed a trio which included Herb Ellis on guitar and Lou Carter on piano which
performed and recorded in New York. He
later appeared in the film titled The Fabulous Dorseys. In 1951, he worked as a studio musician and
arranger in Chicago and led a band at a place called Mr. Kelly’s in Chicago’s
Bohemia. The trio (The Soft Winds Trio)
broke up in 1952. Between 1951 and 1974,
he also played with The Sage Riders, a country band which broadcast nationwide
from a radio station in Chicago – as did Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra in New York
in the classical music realm. The show –
at various times - included the likes of Gene Autry, Rex Allen, Bill Haley, and
Andy Williams. Here’s one of their
videos. During his career, he played
with Mel Torme, Barbra Streisand, Charlie Byrd, Frank Sinatra, and Mahalia
Jackson, among other big-name artists. As
did Eddie South after he died, Frigo did not receive much recognition until
later in his career, after focusing once again on the violin and its jazz
potential. Frigo’s recordings can still
be found on the internet. His violin
sound has been compared to Stephane Grappelli’s. Frigo died on July 4, 2007, at age 90.
Rudi Berger is an Austrian violinist, singer, pianist, guitarist, and composer born (in Vienna) on November 19, 1954. Be that as it may, Rudi Berger has actually become the most-recorded jazz violinist of another country (Brazil) and may very well be the only Austrian jazz violinist in the world, though he has lived and worked outside of Austria for many years. His classical training on violin and piano – begun when he was six - took place at the Vienna Conservatory where he studied with Guenther Schich and Karl Barilly, learning the works of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Paganini, Kreutzer, Rode, and all the rest. As have other jazz artists, he began playing jazz as a very young student, having been drawn to it from age fourteen. His grandfather (Rudolf Berger) and his uncle were strong influences in this regard. By age fifteen, he had begun to teach himself to play electric guitar and had joined Viennese Blues legend Al Cook in performances and recordings. Later on, he worked as a violinist, pianist, guitarist, and singer in a night club band and with a Viennese Waltz Orchestra. (Jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, although best known as a violinist, also played saxophone, piano, and accordion.) In 1977, he became a soloist with the newly-formed Vienna Art Orchestra. He was 22 years old. He worked with this orchestra for three years while at the same time forming a Jazz Rock group called Good News in 1978. In 1985 and ’86 he was voted Violinist of the Year by Jazz Live, a European jazz music magazine. By then, Berger had formed the Rudi Berger Quartet, Rudi Berger Project, and Rudi Berger Group jazz ensembles. Berger moved to New York in September of 1986, having already released his first album, First Step, in Europe. In New York, Berger restarted his career by working as a street musician for about a year. During that time, New York jazz radio station WKCR invited him and his New York Quartet to play a two-hour live Jazz Concert Special. Among the jazz clubs he worked in were the Village Vanguard, the Bottom Line, the Village Gate, Indigo Blues, and the Knitting Factory. His international reputation was established in 1988 at the American Music Theater Festival in collaboration with Astor Piazzola, well-known Argentine tango cross-over composer. Since 1990, he has toured in Europe, Japan, the U.S., and South America. Berger’s collaborators in film and Grammy-nominated studio recordings have included Tonhino Horta, Mauro Rodrigues, Yuri Popoff, Gerry Weil, Jay Anderson, Phil Bowler, Mike Clark, Ron McClure, Victor Bailey, Michael Gerber, Peter Madsen, Art Frank, Charles Fambrough, Joseph Bowie, and Nana Vasconcelos. In 1993, Berger performed in Brazil for the first time. Between 1998 and 2002, he traveled between Brazil, New York, and Vienna, moving among three cultures and working in essentially different jazz worlds. He was guest instructor at the University of Minas Gerais in Brazil between 1998 and 2000. In 2003, Berger moved to Brazil permanently, working regularly with some of Brazil’s top composers and musicians, including Toninho Horta, Selma Reis, and Nelson Ayres. Here is one of his YouTube videos and here is one of his recent CDs – In Search of Harmony. Rudi Berger plays a 1992 violin by American violin maker David Burgess. His bow of choice is by English bow maker Howard Green - "a really, really great bow," Mr Berger says.
