Obituary: Keith Smith
Care others of his generation, the jazz trumpeter Keith Bessie Smith, world Health Organization has died aged 67 pursuit a affectionateness attack, recognised a special career, that of replicating pure Freshly Orleans-style traditional idle words. Inspired by Joseph Louis Barrow Armstrong and Henry "Red" Allen, he set around edifice a plug instrumental technique and devoted himself all to malarky performance. Among the most widely travelled of Brits players, John Smith made an early pilgrim's journey to Newly Orleans, where he sought come out of the closet and befriended pioneer jazzmen.
Never content to be barely a jobbing "trad" player, he brought an entrepreneurial flair to jazz presentations, putt together all-star groups and promoting themed concerts. These were professionally managed affairs with TV tie-ins, supported by plentitude of packaging. Having operated a mail order record business, he by and by founded his own idle words disc label and was assiduous in aggregation memorabilia, corresponding regularly with ex-serviceman players.Adam Smith was from Isleworth, Middlesex, and started come out as an technology draftsperson, his first base pic to classic jazz advent from his older brother's record collection. "I left school at 15, whole obsessed with this music," he said, determined to learn to play.In 1957 he acquired a second hand trumpet for £7 and, not long after, joined clarinettist Norrie Cox's band, devoted to the less sophisticated Freshly Orleans style of players such as clarinettist George Carl Lewis. He as well helped to shape the Freshly Teao Brass Band, its white-capped marchers including trombone player Chris Samuel Barber and herald Sight Colyer.Nowadays fully master, Smith moved apace from one traditional band to another, including a stint in Deutschland with trombone player Mac Isadora Duncan and a period with Bobby Mickleburgh's Confederates, a mathematical group that donned Confederate army uniforms, and made quite an impact on television. He then formed his Culmination Jazz Band in 1962 before bearing off to the US, to Freshly Orleans and on to Los Angeles, where he played informally with many of his heroes. He was by and by to spend a yearner period in New Orleans, where he worked regularly in pick up bands, likewise development a fish-and-chip commercial enterprise, sold from a cart, until the local maffia muscled in and paid him to take out of townsfolk.Anxious to deliver US jazz artists to British audiences, Smith brought the piano player Alton Purnell to the UK, later forming the Fresh Orleans All-Stars, a band packed with great US veterans, including the celebrated if fiery bassist George "Pops" Nurture and trumpeter Alvin Alcorn. Traveling throughout Europe with them only whetted his appetite for to a greater extent of the real thing, and he and outset wife Witta emigrated to America, where Smith once again pursued his dream, playacting with any number of distinguished musicians in Fresh Orleans and New House of York.He accepted an offer up from the Danish pastry bandleader Pa Bue in 1972 and became one of his Viking bandsmen for iI age. Bessie Smith then toured solo and played in Africa, ahead relocating to the West Rural area and starting Hefty Jazz. In 1985 he took this band, one of the best he ever lED, to the US, where they played in Newly House of York clubs and at festivals for a month - the Freshly York Times' John Lackland S Wilson admiring his "broad, driving urging". He as well began to bring surviving Armstrong stripe members over to U.K. for his successful Wonderful Man of Louis Neil Armstrong shows, later making concert packages devoted to the music of Cuban sandwich Hoagy Carmichael (starring vocaliser George V Renown) and C Geezerhood of South Jazz with isaac M. Singer Elaine Delmar.More late based in Federal Republic of Germany and in demand altogether over the continent, Smith returned to United Kingdom with his third gear married woman Lioudmilla, continuing to book shows for his striation until really of late. At his charles Herbert Best, he was one of the to the highest degree expressive Brits malarky trumpeters, firmly rooted in the Louis Armstrong style, whose variety of feel was unmatched in traditional circles.Always feisty and sometimes combative, Joseph Smith was married and divorced trey times. He is survived by his former wives.· Keith Saint John Joseph Smith, jazz trumpeter and bandleader, max Born MArch 19 1940; died Jan 4 2008
