Musicians and jazz lovers mourn the death of Paul Smoker

The great avant-garde trumpet player Paul Smoker died this week.
Over the last two decades, Smoker brought his world-class trumpet prowess and
progressive musical vision to the local jazz scene. He could play standards
magnificently, but whenever he had the opportunity to expand musical
boundaries, he did.

Locally, Smoker played mostly at the Bop Shop and Nazareth College,
where he ran the Jazz Studies program. Over the last several years, he played with a small case by his side. It was
the battery pack for his artificial heart.

Born in 1941, Smoker grew up
in Davenport, Iowa. He began on piano, but after hearing Harry James on the
radio, he took up the trumpet at age 10 and began improvising. His trumpet heroes
were Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Maynard Ferguson,
Conte Candoli, Miles Davis, and Chet Baker.

While attending the
University of Iowa in the late 1950’s, Smoker jammed with Al Jarreau, David
Sanborn, and others. He was friends with Doc Severinsen, who helped him with
breathing techniques and introduced him to J.J. Johnson, Lionel Hampton, and
Quincy Jones.

Smoker played straight-ahead
gigs and even occupied trumpet chairs in orchestras, but he found himself most attracted
to the more adventurous side of jazz. It wasn’t long before he was playing and
recording with top avant-garde players like Anthony Braxton. Over the last four
decades, Smoker played on about 60 records. He collaborated with many artists,
including Dave Liebman, Art Pepper, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, and Vinny Golia.

Smoker earned four music
degrees, including a doctorate. He taught at the University of Wisconsin at
Oshkosh, Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Nazareth College, where he ran
the jazz program. His wife Beverly, a pianist, is chair of the Music Department
at Nazareth.

Musicians and associates
shared their memories and tributes with City, via e-mail.

Drew Gress, a
top New York bassist who played with Smoker on many of his gigs in Rochester
and elsewhere, recalls a band-mate who was also a source of inspiration.

“Paul Smoker’s influence on my musical and personal life
was, and still is, profound,” says Gress. “He was perhaps the first musician-mentor
I’d met who was willing to convey, through the lens of his own personal
experience, what it means to be an artist in the modern world… conveying the
magnitude of the commitment required. He led me to realize that this passion
can extend to all aspects of one’s life… and that this makes for a life
well-lived, as Paul’s surely was.”

Bob Sneider,
guitarist and associate professor of Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media at the
Eastman School of Music, played some gigs with Smoker.

“Many in the jazz listening world might pigeon-hole Paul as
an avant-garde-only trumpet player,” says Sneider. “But he was an authority on
the entire history of the music. We had the pleasure of playing as a duet a
handful of times at the Little Theatre and at one of his faculty recitals at
Naz. His command of bebop, standards, and his own adventurous compositions was
inspiring. He was a real musician’s musician… a true listener and partner in
music making.”

Matthew D. Guarnere was Smoker’s primary recording engineer
for many years. He also found that Smoker was open to new challenges beyond
jazz.

“Great caution always had to be taken to faithfully capture
Paul’s playing, because his delivery was unusually sonorous,” says Guarnere. “The
minimum distance I could place a microphone from the bell of Paul’s horn had to
be about 9 feet. Otherwise, the sound level meters would completely peg.”

“Paul was one of the very rare jazz musicians of his
generation to possess almost no ego or stylistic bias,” says Guarnere. “I once
approached him about doing a voice and trumpet duet at one of my rock concerts,
and he was all for it. The resulting improvisational dialog between Paul’s
jazzy trumpet and my rock vocal style – two very different worlds – was
absolutely stratospheric that night. I am so grateful for that experience and
especially for his enduring friendship.”

Mike Melito, drummer and educator, taught Smoker’s son,
Evan, a drummer, and knew Smoker as a teacher.

“Paul knew the roots of the music,” says Melito. “He played
free music but had great respect for the history of jazz. Paul was a very
passionate teacher as well. He wasn’t afraid to tell his students what he
thought, which is what kids need in music schools. He didn’t say things to be
mean. He said things because he cared. A great loss for Rochester and the jazz
world.”

Matthew Bevan-Perkins, a
percussionist and educator, studied with Smoker at Nazareth. “When we played together, it was special because he was
always looking for someone to push his limits,” says Bevan-Perkins. “He’d always say, ‘Man, you gotta kick my ass more.
Inspire me!’ By learning to do this, I was in turn getting my ass kicked by
him. He taught me to play with fire, play to inspire others, and listen to get
inspired.”

Jazz pianist Michael McNeil studied with Smoker at Nazareth.
“I went over to the Smokers’ for a piano lesson with Beverly,” says McNeil. “After
my lesson, I came downstairs to say hello to Paul and leave. Instead, Paul called
me into his office, and we sat for a good hour on a summer evening listening to
some really hip fusion music by Baird Hersey and by Mike Gibbs. I was still a
little star-struck by Smoker at that time, but that was one of the many things
he did to make me feel like I belonged in his world.”

“In my junior year,” says McNeil, “Paul asked a couple of us
to arrange Wayne Shorter tunes for the Nazareth Jazz Combo. I arranged ‘Night
Dreamer’ and used every clever little trick I could, including using the Coltrane-Dolphy
‘Miles Mode’ melody (a 12-tone row) in the bridge. As the band struggled
through it at our Thursday rehearsal, Paul came up to
the stage and stopped us.

“‘They don’t pay me enough to listen to that,’ he grumbled.
Well, I laughed, but I was certainly disappointed. The next day I had my jazz
lesson with him, and between the late night rehearsal and his morning teaching,
he’d made me a CD of some Bill Holman arrangements for the Stan Kenton band,
with complete documentation, to draw my attention to what a real arranger
does with music. Then we sat down together and he showed me some principles to
work with to make my arrangement work.”

Kristen Shiner
McGuire, vibraphonist, drummer, singer and associate professor of Percussion
Studies, worked with Smoker in the music department at Nazareth College. She
perhaps sums up what many who knew him are feeling.

“A great human
being has left the planet,” says Shiner McGuire. “Paul Smoker – consummate
musician, passionate teacher, father, husband, mentor and loving soul – has
left a deep and indelible mark on us. Every time I practice, I think of Paul.
Every time I take a risk on a solo, I think of Paul. A chapter has ended, but
the fire burns on.”

A celebration of the life, music and teaching of
Paul Smoker (including jazz performances) will be held on
Thursday, May 26, at 1 p.m. in Linehan Chapel on the campus of Nazareth
College, 4245 East Avenue, Rochester.

Here’s a 2010 CITY profile of Smoker.

This article appears in May 18-24, 2016.