Musician and bandleader Ian Smith’s incredible creative input has been seen both onstage and off. The trumpeter is undoubtedly one of the country’s most influential and inspirational jazz figures. He speaks about some of his existing and upcoming projects.
THE popular Delft Big Band is now in its 7th year and has an international reputation. They have toured France, performed in Sweden and at last year The Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, where Smith and lead trumpet Lorenzo Blignaut worked with trumpet maestro James Morrisson and The Commonwealth Jazz Orchestra. The Delft Big Band recently released a CD and is extremely busy with festivals, such as The Cape Town International Jazz Festival this year, as well as club gigs.
“A recent highlight was a collaboration with The Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, who is regarded as one of the top, if not the best big band in the world today. The Delft ensemble’s focus is now on excellence as they tackle some of most challenging charts in the big band repertoire,” says Smith.
“The Wellington Music Skills project is now in its third year. The focus here is on music literacy and tackling more diverse genres – a mix of jazz, pop, classical and even the odd march is thrown in. The instrumentation leans towards the concert band set unlike Delft, which is a traditional big band set up. The project has a different energy and onstage they perform a great Stevie Wonder medley which never fails to impress.”
Smith’s latest assignment which is just over a year old is the 40-piece Steenberg High Symphonic Windband, which started from scratch as the entire band had no previous exposure to instruments or reading music. “And with no individual lessons and only two band rehearsals a week they now hit the stage and what’s more – they sound great! They play selections from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Henry Mancini, or from Pirates of the Caribbean. An intake of another 50 pupils now sees the start of the junior band.”
Then there’s Virtual Jazz Reality – one of the land’s best fusion bands ever! After 20 years they’re still together boasting the original line up: Smith, Andrew Ford, Sammy Webber and Frank Paco. They still do jazz fests, corporates and club gigs.
Smith has stepped back after 10 years on the Pigalle bandstand, where he garnered an extensive vocal repertoire. As a trumpeter he’s also booked as a solo performer. He was also featured as one of our Legends, which reviewed his career and musical journey and followed his path through his days as a session, military, classical, pop, rock musician and his years as a lead trumpet player touring with many international artists.
The trumpeter’s main aim for the future, with the help of Artscape, is to create a set-up that would allow more specialised training for the players in these and other projects or institutions for aspiring professional musicians, who would pursue jazz or big band music as a career. This model would be based on the UK’s National Youth Big Bands model. “I hope to set up a three-tier programme with beginner, intermediate and advanced big bands. The latter will be a working band performing on a regular basis.”
Why does he do what he does? “There is nothing more exciting than a big sound, be it concert band, big band or symphony orchestra. The bigger the better, and when budget allows, most musicians expand to a bigger line up. You see it in today’s pop music in the addition of horn and string sections etc,” he explains. Another reason is “to give the thrill of banding to a new gene-ration and see the kick they get out of it, not to mention the benefits – keeping them off the streets and keeping the legacy of the music alive. The payoff is seeing my students move into pro gigs and teaching posts. Seeing them develop and blossom. Despite coming from the most disadvantaged commu-nities, giving them a sense of dignity is what the music does for them. I guess that gives me the greatest reward. Well, that and five trumpets screaming in the extreme upper register! And for that you need to come see the Delft Big Band on Saturday!”, adds this much-loved maestro.