RIP Paul Smith at 91 years of age

[Bobadohshe]

Just saw a post on Facebook that Paul Smith passed away last night in Torrance, CA. His grandson Alex is a drummer and was in my high school class, though at the time I had no idea who Paul Smith was (shame!!).

 

Paul was 91 years old and obviously a legend in his way. I won't offer more of an editorial on his life and influence as frankly I'm late to the game of knowing about him and I know others here like Dave Ferris know much more about his storied career and saw him play many times.

 

I only saw him live once and that was three years ago at a concert he did at his home in Palos Verdes. He played pretty incredibly for an 88 year old.

 

And I have one other story from about a month ago when I was listening to our local jazz station in San Diego, and I tuned in mid song and heard what I initially thought was Oscar Peterson. Then I realized that though the technique was there, the swing was about a 75% match to Oscar's unmistakable bounce, but not identical. Then I realized the pianist was pulling from a different bag of vocabulary than Oscar. Then it was put to rest as suddenly there were some bold schmaltzy arrangement choices that Oscar would have never made. They were a little more....poppy. And showcasey. But this piece was great jazz and it was a pianistic tour de force. I was baffled as to who it could be. Then the DJ came on and announced it was Paul Smith, the artist of the week, and it all made sense.

 

R.I.P. Paul!

[Jazzmammal]

That's really sad, I had the pleasure of seeing him and meeting with him several times.

 

I've got three Paul Smith stories. In the 80's he had the lounge gig at the old Velvet Turtle in Redondo Beach with a standup bass player. There was a small 10" stage for the grand with a pinpoint spot shining on him. I had requested Tunisia and they were just burning it up when right in the middle of his solo this lady slowly walks along the side of the piano ducking down to try to stay out of the spotlight and tries to hand Paul a request note while he's soloing. He holds out is left hand to the bassist, stops cold, gives her a huge smile, slowly takes the piece of paper, tells her "yes, we can do that" signals the bassist and picks up his screaming solo right where he left off. It was classic.

 

You mentioned Oscar, one time a guitarist friend and I were there and he asked him what it was like to follow Oscar at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Without any hint of deference or intimidation at all Paul said he hated following Oscar because he played so hard he tore up the pianos to the point he had trouble with the action and tuning.

 

My favorite Paul Smith story was the time I brought my mother to that lounge for Mothers day in the afternoon specifically because he was playing and someone requested Happy Birthday. He started playing what sounded like a slow, sombre funeral dirge type thing and he drug it out long enough that some people were starting to mumble a bit then he morphed it into a major, gradually sped it up, modulated a few times, kept on speeding it up, did some Bach and Chopin and turned it into an incredible 10 minute mashed up tour de force. He wound up very up tempo, playing the French National Anthem and worked the Birthday melody into it with a huge technical flourish at the end singing and playing as a ritard "happy...birthday....to.....you."

 

He got his start as the staff pianist with Warner Brothers around 1946 and this Happy Birthday thing was right out of those cartoons. All that stuff you saw Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck do with pianos was all him. I was utterly speechless and in shock over what he did with Happy Birthday, it was just amazing. He was a real showman and one hell of a player.

 

Bob

 

[LX88]

Is he the same one that worked with Ella Fitzgerald for all those years?

[Jazzmammal]

Yes along with Sinatra and lots of others.

 

Bob

[Bobadohshe]

...right in the middle of his solo this lady slowly walks along the side of the piano ducking down to try to stay out of the spotlight and tries to hand Paul a request note while he's soloing. He holds out is left hand to the bassist, stops cold, gives her a huge smile, slowly takes the piece of paper, tells her "yes, we can do that" signals the bassist and picks up his screaming solo right where he left off.

 

This is an awesome story.

[Dave Ferris]

Aw, sorry to hear about that...

 

When I saw the thread, I started trying to recall the name of that restaurant in Palos Verdes where he set up shop after getting off the road with Ella and became a fixture for years. Yeah, the Velvet Turtle..thanks Bob.

 

It brings back some very fond memories of when we first moved to LA in Jan. of '79. We ended up in Redondo right there at the corner Artesia & Aviation on Nelson and rented this tiny guest house.

 

I think I only went to the Turtle a handful of times. It was always jammed, you had to park out on the street. I remember maybe the second time I went. I was standing in the back as there were no seats and you basically couldn't see the stage area. All of a sudden I hear this huge roar from the audience and I was thinking, wow what's up ? It turns out Ella was eating dinner there and got up to sing a few tunes. Well the place went from super noisy (yeah everyone was talking over the trio) to, you could hear a pin drop.

 

I'll never forget it...I'm 25 years old, I'd been in town maybe 2 weeks fresh from playing bar bands in St. Louis, and I'm in a restaurant and Ella is singing ! Wow ! I still recall the songs..at least a few of them. Ain't Misbehavin', Lady be good, and she did Embraceable you as a ballad. It was so quiet, it was like the Pope was holding court.

 

After she finished the crowd was screaming !! To finish off the set, Paul went into this ridiculous version of Sweet Georgia Brown. I'm guessing half note =144, complete with a solo stride section where he sounded like friggin' Tatum !

 

I also very clearly remember in that same week I heard Dexter Gordon at "Concerts by the sea" with George Cables & Rufus Reid. Then the next night, Phil Woods at the "Lighthouse". This was all minutes from our house. I asked bassist Richard Simon, long time South Bay fixture, who was the first LA "jazz guy" I met--"I'm seeing all these legends, all in one week, minutes from my house, does this happen all the time around here" ?! He said, yeah, pretty regularly..

 

It was quite an introduction to LA and certainly had a huge influence on me thinking...man I gotta get my sh*t together, like right now !

 

Like I said, I only went to VT a few times and always was astounded by Paul's pianistic prowess. But as I started getting more into jazz and studying the solos, time feel and styles of Bud, Bird, Clifford Brown, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Kelly, Tommy Flannagan, Hank Jones, Sonny Clark, etc. with vibist Charlie Shoemake- the less Paul's jazz playing appealed to me.

Like Bobby mentioned, he could have that tendency to be kinda Hollywood/show biz at times.

 

Still, you'd be hard pressed to find someone more respected from a chops pov then Mr. Smith in LA. From a standpoint of just " playing the piano", he was unparalleled.

 

RIP Mr. Smith, another great one gone.

[bgregg]

He wrote a couple books of jazz exercises for piano, published by Mel Bay if memory serves, which one of my teachers used with me and which I then used with some of my students. I remember reading a review of one of his records back when "Keyboard" was still "Contemporary Keyboard" in which the reviewer (Jim Aikin, I think) said "Even his chops have chops." RIP, Mr. Smith.

[jogger]

I first heard of him I believe he was pianist on Merv Griffin's show way back. Large hands if I remember. Thought he was good on the show but I guess on tv he didn't get the chance to really shine. I then was listening to a jazz online radio show a few years ago and heard what I thought was a cross of Tatum and Peterson, but it was Paul Smith. They played a few more cuts and it definitely raised my awareness of him. Great player that should be more well known. But that's jazz in USA.

[Bobadohshe]

Large hands if I remember

 

He was a big man. Probably 6'3" or more.

[Jazzmammal]

Yes, I'm 6'1 and he was a few inches taller than me and big including his hands. I also have 3 of his books I bought when I was living in Canada for 10 years. When I moved back to LA I was in Hermosa Beach and one day his Turnarounds book happened to be open to the front bio page that I had never bothered to read so I looked at it. At the very bottom it said "currently appearing at the Velvet Turtle in Redondo Beach". I immediately grabbed the phone and called the place and I was told that yes indeed he was appearing that very night and I was right down there after dinner.

 

That place was bought out and turned into Legacy Restaurant and I did a regular Sunday brunch gig on the patio for about 6 years weather permitting. David Benoit also lives in Palos Verdes and would come in occasionally for brunch with his wife and kid. The first couple of times he did that I was a nervous wreck but after that I figured, hey if I'm hurting his ears he wouldn't be here so I stopped worrying about it. One time we were hired for a private party in the main dining room and I was told to bring my rig because the grand was moved to the banquet room for another private party. Who was playing for that party? Paul Smith so now I had him watching me for a few minutes when he took a break and again I was sweating bullets. That was the time our guitarist asked him about Oscar.

 

When you're gigging in LA you just have to get used to the fact that there's heavyweights all over the place and try not to worry about it. Most of them are very nice and we all know I'm not at their level but I do ok and they're very gracious.

 

Bob

[Bobadohshe]

The heavyweightedness of David B and Paul Smith is not the same!

[Jazzmammal]

True but don't sell David short. You know how it is, guys will find a niche and do what they gotta do to make hit songs just like Kenny G did.

 

David actually sat in twice with us at Legacy including one time when we had Dig Lewis on bass who played with David a few times including at the Bowl. They did Green Dolphin Street and Blue Bossa and I'm tellin ya David is a serious dude too. Our guitarist was walking on air all afternoon saying "I can't believe I just played with David Benoit". They didn't put the grand out on the patio so I was using my old Alesis QS8. He was awesome on it. I had to get back up there and follow that. Maybe he's not at the level of Paul but high enough up the food chain to blow us all out of the water...

 

I want to put a little disclaimer here, I'm name dropping a bit and it is all true but the bands I work with are not all heavies including me, what's great about LA is when people are not doing some big tour you can call them and get them to do a gig with you for a hundred bucks. Unfortunately all those places that Dave Ferris talked about are all gone except for the Lighthouse. I was just down on the pier last week checking things out, there is still some, some jazz at the Lighthouse but not much. Otherwise there's squat around here.

 

Bob

[Jazz+]

http://aixrecords.com/images/sess_phto_smith_4_720.jpg

[Jazzmammal]

I was looking for a better pic than this one when I found this very good obit in the LA Times. If I can find some good pics of him I'll post them.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-paul-smith-20130702,0,1791379.story

 

OK, this is a sort of 3 year old South Bay blog with a full bio of him with some cool pics and it's a pretty good read. There's stuff in here I had no idea about. Sammy Davis, Pat Boone, Steve Allen, tons of very cool things he did. Man 'o man. The go-to Hollywood pianist for years.

 

http://oursouthbay.com/January-February-2010/Keys-to-Success/

 

Now what? Why isn't the LA Times story coming up as an active link? The other one is why not this one? I just swiped it and pasted it in my browser and that works ok.

 

Bob

[Joe Muscara]

The forum software is a little goofy that way. Use the url= tags like this and you'll get a link.

 

[url=http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-paul-smith-20130702,0,1791379.story]LA Times Obit[/url]

[moj]

Belated respects to one of the best. RIP.

Here's a vid from 2012 at 90 years old and having fun!

[video:youtube]