Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Jazz Festival New York Posts 2025 Lineup
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
Drummer Viola Smith died Oct. 21 at the age of 107 in Costa Mesa, California.
(Photo: YouTube)In 1938, after several Smith sisters left to get married, the orchestra morphed into The Coquettes, an all-female big band founded by the drummer and her multi-instrumentalist sister, Mildred. Smith’s fiery drum solos became the band’s centerpiece—including her trademark “Snake Charmer” showcase—and The Croquettes enjoyed a modest run of success as a touring act until Mildred quit to get married.
Always an independent spirit, Smith broke off her own engagement after her fiancé was drafted and alone moved to New York, where she won a scholarship to The Juilliard School and established herself as a performer. After studying with the celebrated drummer Billy Gladstone, Smith perfected her signature style as the “female Gene Krupa” and went on to play with everyone from the NBC Symphony Orchestra to Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb. She also penned a proto-feminist manifesto for DownBeat in 1942, titled “Give Girl Musicians A Break!”
“In these times of national emergency, [when] many of the star instrumentalists of the big-name bands are being drafted, why not let some of the great girl musicians of the country take their place?” Smith argued in her impassioned piece. “The girls today are not the helpless creatures of earlier generations. Some girl musicians are as much masters of their instruments as are male musicians. They can improvise, their solos are well-defined and thought-provoking and show unlimited imagination.”
Though the pioneering jazz feminist concluded her screed with a provocative tagline—“Think it over, boys!”—much work was left to be done. It remains so today. Still, it was the first real call to arms from women in the musical trenches, and Smith herself went on to have an enduring career.
She performed at President Harry S. Truman’s 1949 inauguration, had a long-running stint with the popular all-girl House Of Charm orchestra, and led her own band, Viola and Her Seventeen Drums. Smith also played with the Kit-Kat Band in the original 1960s Broadway production of Cabaret, and continued to perform on and off until she was well into her 90s. From her early days in the family band to her later gigs playing with Hollywood film orchestras, Smith was in her chosen profession for the long haul. And why not? “We girls have as much stamina as men,” she told Drum Talk TV in 2017. “Girl drummers can stand the grind of long tours and exacting one-night stands.”
And so can Smith’s illustrious “girl drummer” inheritors, from Terri Lyne Carrington to Miller, who set her own course following the path Smith forged.
“What an inspiration,” Miller enthused. “I am grateful to Viola for persevering and showing us that it can be done. Her joyful rhythmic spirit will live on in our beating hearts.” DB
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Davis was a two-time Grammy winner for liner notes.
Apr 22, 2025 11:50 AM
Francis Davis, an august jazz and cultural critic who won both awards and esteem in print, film and radio, died April…
