Johnny Smith (1922-2013)

Johnny Smith, one of the top jazz guitarists of the '50s, died June 11 at the age of 90 at his home in Colorado Springs. The cause was complications from a fall. He was known for his complex improvisations and his flawless technique. Vincent Pelote of Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies commented that, “He took very logical solos, like someone had written them all out ahead of time, but that was not the case. That's how organized a mind he had, and he had the technical ability to pull it all off.”

John Henry Smith II was born June 25, 1922 in Birmingham, AL. His family moved to Portland, ME during the Depression. Although he was too poor to afford a guitar, he worked out an arrangement with local pawnshops in which he kept their guitars in tune in exchange for the opportunity to play them. He was largely self-taught and began playing professionally in a country band at age 13. During World War II, he played cornet in the Army Air Corps band. After the war, he came to New York to play in the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He became interested in jazz after hearing Django Reinhardt on the radio. He formed his first quartet in 1951 with Stan Getz, a fellow NBC studio musician.

Their breakthrough came in 1952, when their recording of “Moonlight in Vermont” became a surprise hit. He played the melody as a series of chords, rather than single notes. His Washington Post obituary quotes him as saying, “The hardest thing to do on the guitar is to play a melodic chord progression in smooth, even fashion without leaving space between chords. Then one day I noticed how an organist managed to keep a tone going between chords by holding down one of the notes of the chordwhile he pivoted to the next chord. I picked up on that and applied it to chord progressions on the guitar.”

Smith's jazz quartets featuring Getz or Zoot Sims became a fixture on the New York jazz scene in the '50s, playing regularly at Birdland. He was a frequent Downbeat poll winner as favorite jazz guitarist. The now out-of-print Mosaic box set, The Complete Johnny Smith Roost Sessions, collects many of his best-known recordings. In 1954, he composed and recorded “Walk, Don't Run,” which became a hit single for the rock guitar group, the Ventures, in 1959, and was a welcome source of royalties. (Unfortunately, this song has been taken down, so I've made a substitution.)

In 1958, after his wife died in childbirth, he left New York and moved to Colorado Springs to raise his family. He said he never regretted it. He taught guitar (one of his students was Bill Frisell), bought a music store, designed guitars, played occasionally at Colorado clubs, and recorded progressively less over the years, as his understated style fell out of fashion. Many of his best-known recordings were only 3 minutes long. Here he is in 1981, stretching out on Frank Foster's "Shiny Stockings."