Cladys "Jabbo" Smith: Personal Interview
by: Mike Joyce for Cadence in May 1982
Jabbo Smith on the Jenkins Orphanage
Band:
Cadence: Let's begin way back with your days in the oprhanage.
Jabbo: I left there when I was about 16.
Cadence: It seems like you came out of there with a really good understanding of music. What kind of music teaching
went on in the orphanage?
Jabbo: They had Alonzo Mills, he was my teacher there then. He was very good, started you off with the rudiments,
before you get the horn. In a couple of months he'd give you that horn.
Cadence: Did you start off on the trumpet?
Jabbo: No, the trombone. You see, the way he taught you, he'd teach everybody in the same room. So you're hearing
what he's telling everybody else. So you play all the instruments. I play all the brass instruments.
Cadence: The orphanage had a brass band.
Jabbo: Oh yeah, they had six brass bands. At the time he called me I was ont he yard, they called me "yard
boy," that's when you're not doing anything. They try to give you some sort of trade like carpenter or shoe
making or bakery, you know. If you're not doing nothing they call you a yard boy - you're just out there picking
sticks up (laughter). So one day Mr. Mills came out and he called "You come here - you come here." And
you know how kids are, they'd be beating on pans and things; you'd want to be a drummer, everybody wanted to be
a drummer. So I guess he musthave thought you were musically inclined or something. He called me inthat bunch that
he had picked out. Then he'd just sit you down and give you a little lecture what music was all about. I have abook
over here called "The Jazz Nursery" about these fabulous people. He's about the most famous person, to
me, Martin Luther King was all rightm but brother D.J. Jankins was the man. He'd take these kids, just orphan kids,
he'd take them from the jails, anywhere, everybody would just send the kids there, and that was fabulous, to keep
the little kids out of jail. He would train them.
Cadence: Did you actually tour with these kids?
Jabbo: Oh yes. The idea for the band was to raise money for the orphanage. Jenkins was just a famous man, for
the git-go he was just a born leader.
Cadence: What kind of music were you playing with the orphanage band?
Jabbo: That was something beautiful about the orphanage. They's start you off
playinf, after you learned your fingering and all, learned what music was all
about, then you'd start to playing hyms, like "Nearer My God To Thee"
and good things like that. They'd start you playing hymns,
marches, then you'd graduate to overtures and things like that. By
the tme you get out of there you're well versed, because he started you from the
roots.
Cadence: Why did you leave?
Jabbo: Well, you know, everybody runs away. That's the only way you get out of there (laughter). That's one
thing I appreciate (about the orphanage), so far I've been over this many times in school - New York, I've been
to New York so many times as a kid. So when you get out you know where you want to go.
Cadence: When you got out of there you were pretty fast on that horn and you were only 16 or 17 years old.
Jabbo: 16
Jabbo Smith on playing with other bands:
Cadence: How did that "Black and Tan Fantasy"
come about with Ellington?
Jabbo: Well, I think Bubba must have been sick or something. And he needed somebody to substitute so he asked
if I wanted to do it.
Cadence: Tell me about the Charlie Johnson band, and your own band, the Rhythm Aces.
Jabbo: The Rhythm Aces was Ikey Robinson's , it was just a pick up band. That's what I was syin about those
guys back then, they didn't have to have all this music. It didn't have to be written down, we could go to the
studio and I could hum these things to these cats and everybosy got it from there. They were fabulous, 'cause they
jad fabulous musicians, like Lawson Buford, Omer Simeon and Ikey Robinson and Cas Simpson, just fabulous cats.
Charlie (Johnson) had the best band in New York, no doubt about it. He had Benny Waters, Benny Carter, and Edgar
Sampson, that's the front line! I used to double on trombone with Charlie. In fact, I think we were the first to
have two trombones 'cause I doubled with Charlie. Before that you could see one trombone in the band; now they
got 4, 5. Anyway we had Cliff Bradenton (?), myself, Charlie in the brass section; Cyrus Sinclair on the tuba,
Bobby Johnson playing guitar, Charlie himself on the piano. This was what was crazy, Charlie would come in in the
night and start the band off, and he'd be gone, he'd go somewhere, he'd be gone all night and the band would be
jumpin' (laughter). We had to play them shows and everything, that was a beautiful time. Small's Paradise was the
spot.
Cadence: You recorded with Fats Waller and James P. Johnson.
Jabbo: Yes, we did this thing, "The Sugar Babies"... They were beautiful people, they were like brothers,
just fabulous people. That's the thing I like about musicians, most of them are.
