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Tommy Smith

Tommy Smith is a leading light in European jazz, first and foremost as one of the finest saxophonists of his generation, and latterly as the founder and current director of The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra (SNJO). These career-defining achievements are framed by his status as an international recording artist; a composer and arranger of extraordinary ambition; and not least, as a jazz educator.

His prolific career began in earnest when, aged only sixteen, he recorded his first album Giant Strides. He was rewarded with a scholarship to Berklee College of Music, an experience that has shaped his affirmative approach to jazz. Since then, he has made twenty-seven solo albums as a leader for Blue Note, Linn and his own label Spartacus Records.

Smith has also earned the regard, support and friendship of the many respected jazz figures with whom he has collaborated and created great jazz. They include, but are not limited to, Gary Burton, Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, Kenny, Barron, Arild Andersen, John Scofield and Trilok Gurtu. His tenure with the SNJO has seen critically acclaimed performances and recordings of programmed and commissioned works including hugely popular treatments of Ellington, Gershwin, Mozart, Weather Report and Miles Davis.

Smith is founder and director of The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra & The Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra. Head of Jazz/Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Holds 3 honorary doctorates: Heriot-Watt, Glasgow Caledonian & Edinburgh Universities & a RCS Professorship. He won three British Jazz Awards (1989, 1996 & 2002), BBC Heart of Jazz Award (2008), Scottish Jazz Expo Award (2009), Lord Provost Music Award (2009), & 7 Scottish Jazz Awards Woodwind (2009); Educator (2011, 2012); Big Band (2009, 2011, 2012); seventh Scottish Jazz Award for album of the year; Parliamentary Jazz Award (2012, 2016).

Awards

2016 Parliamentary Jazz Award [Educator] 2013 Honorary Doctorate of Music [University of Edinburgh] 2012 British Jazz Award [Big Band] Parliamentary Jazz Award [Big Band] Scottish Jazz Award [Educator] Scottish Jazz Award [Best Album 'KARMA'] 2011 Scottish Jazz Award [Educator] Scottish Jazz Award [Big Band] 2009 Scottish Jazz Award [Big Band] Scottish Jazz Award [Woodwind] 2008 Honorary Doctorate of Letters [Caledonian University, Glasgow] Heart of Jazz Award [BBC Jazz Awards#2008] 2002 The British Jazz Awards [Best Tenor Saxophonist] 2000 Scottish Arts Council [Creative Scotland Award] Honorary Fellow of the [Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland] Honorary Doctorate [Heriot-Watt University], Edinburgh 1996 Arts Foundation/Barclays Bank [Jazz Composition Fellowship Prize] BT British Jazz Award 1992 Wavendon All Music Awards [Services to Music] 1989 British Jazz Award 1986 BBC National Big Band Competition [Outstanding Musician Award] 1981 Edinburgh Jazz Festival [Best Band] Edinburgh Jazz Festival [Best Soloist]

Gear

Rico Jazz Select Reeds

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Extended Analysis

Scottish National Jazz Orchestra: In the Spirit of Duke

CD/LP/Track Review

Karma by John Kelman
Torah by John Kelman
Exploration by John Kelman
Forbidden Fruit by John Kelman
Evolution by John Kelman
Blue Smith by Glenn Astarita

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE ★★★★★ “His tone is tungsten-tough or tender and nostalgic, his improvisations stimulating and affecting.”

“He makes ancient and modern music sound strangely compatible and in his ecstatic renderings makes Coltrane’s ‘Naima’ and even Rodgers & Hart’s “My Romance’ sound like prayers. This is a unique album.”

SCOTSMAN ★★★★★ “His toughest and most creative quartet yet.” ”TOMMY Smith is not one to do things by half measures.”

IRISH TIMES ★★★★★ “Smith’s tenor is now the uniquely personal voice of a great player”

JAZZWISE “It is quite possibly his finest recording yet.”

OBSERVER Jazz CD of the week “An auspicious first release by Smith's own label”

GUARDIAN “A rare splicing of rich-toned, pipe-like themes, fiercely guttural up-tempo tenor improv, Arabic and Irish music.” Jazz CD of the week “A very elegant take on standard jazz materials”

MOJO “Scottish saxophonist/composer’s 24th album, one of his best.”

BIRMINGHAM POST “Since Stan Getz died, Smith must be one of the chief contenders for most beautiful saxophone sound in the world.”

INDEPENDENT “Smith comes across as a true star, inhabiting the sound of his saxophone in a way very few players anywhere in the world are capable of.”

PLAYBOY MAGAZINE “Smith’s artful writing makes the band sound like a petite philharmonic.”

DOWNBEAT “Smith’s some sax-man

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE ★★★★★ “His tone is tungsten-tough or tender and nostalgic, his improvisations stimulating and affecting.”

SCOTSMAN ★★★★★ “His toughest and most creative quartet yet.” ”TOMMY Smith is not one to do things by half measures.”

IRISH TIMES ★★★★★ “Smith’s tenor is now the uniquely personal voice of a great player”

JAZZWISE “It is quite possibly his finest recording yet.”

OBSERVER Jazz CD of the week “An auspicious first release by Smith's own label”

GUARDIAN “A rare splicing of rich-toned, pipe-like themes, fiercely guttural up-tempo tenor improv, Arabic and Irish music.” Jazz CD of the week “A very elegant take on standard jazz materials”

MOJO “Scottish saxophonist/composer’s 24th album, one of his best.”

BIRMINGHAM POST “Since Stan Getz died, Smith must be one of the chief contenders for most beautiful saxophone sound in the world.”

INDEPENDENT “Smith comes across as a true star, inhabiting the sound of his saxophone in a way very few players anywhere in the world are capable of.”

PLAYBOY MAGAZINE “Smith’s artful writing makes the band sound like a petite philharmonic.”

DOWNBEAT “Smith’s some sax-man. Possessing a shining powerful tone and masterful technique, he creates melodies, not riffs, even if the tempo is outrageous.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES “Smith’s soloing… is superb, never more so than in a stunning, utterly solo rendering of Solitude.”

ALL ABOUT JAZZ “Were Smith still living in the US, there’s every chance he’d be the star there that he clearly is at home.”

JOHN SCOFIELD “Tommy is an incredible writer and a great, great player.”

GARY BURTON “Tommy Smith, the most talented tenor sax star to arrive on the world scene in years.”

CHICK COREA “Tommy has a unique sound and approach. I like it from when I first heard him play as a student at Berklee.”

DAVID LIEBMAN “Tommy Smith is one of the best musicians around.”

JACK DeJOHNETTE “One of the important voices in the young tenor players of today.”

STUART NICHOLSON - JAZZWISE “The notion that an album will last beyond an artist’s lifetime, as in the case of many classics from jazz’s Golden Years in the 1950s and 1960s, seems a thing of the past. Yet Modern Jacobite, by the strength of Tommy Smith’s epic ‘Jacobite’ suite, certainly has the potential to last beyond Smith’s lifetime. In any event, ‘Jacobite’ is a masterful piece of music.”

LANCE LIDDLE – BEBOP SPOKEN HERE “There will be few better tenor saxophone records this year. In fact there will be few better jazz records this year. Probably no better ‘classical’ records this year. Truth is, there will be few better records this year.”

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