Good Stuff

Jazz violin starts here

by Ed Hazell

Mosaic Records has dug into the vaults of yet another jazz label for one of its most revelatory box sets in some time: The Complete Verve Stuff Smith Sessions. Violinist Smith is not generally considered a major figure in jazz, but on the basis of these mid-career recordings it's hard to imagine why not. The nine sessions spread over four CDs reveal an important figure in the transition from swing to bop, a soloist of great rhythmic drive, harmonic daring, and boundless melodic invention. This set includes an entire CD devoted to previously unissued 1956 trio sessions that are major additions to the Smith discography. The historical value of the set is also enhanced by four unissued titles from a 1959 session with Shirley Horn that features her first recorded vocals, and a previously unissued and utterly delightful 1964 encounter with Ellington trumpeter/violinist Ray Nance.

In many ways Smith was the father of jazz violin. Unlike other jazz violinists of the time, like Eddie South or Joe Venuti, he conceived of the instrument more along African-American jazz models than along European classical ones. (Frenchman Stephane Grappelli, like Smith, was self-taught but derived many of his ideas, and his sweet tone, from Gypsy music.) He developed his own bowing techniques, which helped him execute shorter phrases similar to what you'd hear from breath-controlled instruments like trumpet or saxophone. With his hoarse, earthy tone and that idiosyncratic phrasing, his music is most similar in sound and execution to that of saxophonists like Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. Swing was all-important to him, and he once likened his way of hitting the strings with his bow to a drummer playing a cymbal. He also emulated big bands when he used double stops. He conceived the E and A strings as the brass section and the D and G strings as the reeds, and he riffed like an orchestra at the climax of his solos. His transformation of the violin into a genuine jazz instrument is in many ways comparable to what Hawkins did for the tenor sax. His early use of contact mikes ranks him with other amplified instrument pioneers like guitarists Eddie Durham and Charlie Christian.

One shouldn't wax too grandiose about Smith's innovations, however, because he was also a down-to-earth and infectiously joyful entertainer. An irrepressible comedian on stage, Smith enjoyed wide popularity in the late '20s and early '30s. Even at his most adventurous, with the bands on 52nd Street that influenced trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and other younger players whose music became known as bebop, he never lost his feel for song, the blues, or the theatricality of popular music. A broadly comic singer who was very much in the Armstrong vein, Smith was also a prolific, if not always memorable, composer of popular songs -- 27 of the 57 tracks in the Mosaic box were written or co-written by him. He was the least pretentious innovator you can imagine.

The two trio sessions on the first CD, inexplicably unissued until now, are vintage Smith: rhythmically extroverted, unfailingly lyrical improvisations with flashes of harmonic daring and flag-waving double-stop finales. The session with pianist Jimmy Jones (best known as an accompanist of singers like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald) holds the edge for Jones's sophisticated chording and his rhythmic simpático with Smith. On several quartet sessions, backing trios offer a lighthanded, spacious, rhythmically strong foundation for Smith's flamboyant swing. His down-home feeling and mustardy-sweet blues inflections mesh especially well with pianist Carl Perkins on two 1957 dates that are highlighted by a jocular and inventive version of Smith's "Stop, Look." A later 1959 session features understated piano comping by a young Shirley Horn, as well as four previously unissued tracks with Horn's dark, intimate singing.

Verve producer Norm Granz often paired up artists on his roster in all-star sessions. The April '57 meeting with trumpeter Gillespie has a loose, blowing-session quality. Much of the date rambles unevenly, but sparks fly on a very fast "Russian Lullaby," on which Smith more than holds his own against the modernist trumpeter. The March '57 meeting with pianist Oscar Peterson, though not as likely a pairing, is excellent throughout, highlighted by a insouciant version of Smith's "Desert Sands" and several rollicking Ellington numbers.

Today there are probably more jazz violinists than at any time in the history of the music. From Leroy Jenkins and Billy Bang to Regina Carter, Mark Feldman, and Mat Maneri, you can think of them all as the children of Stuff Smith. n

The Complete Verve Stuff Smith Sessions is available by mail or phone only from Mosaic Records. Write to 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Connecticut 06902, or call (203) 327-7111.