Stuff Smith - Hot Jazz Violin

Whenever someone mentions jazz nobody really thinks of violins as jazz instruments. Even if they do the only guy that comes to mind is usually just Stephane Grappelli and yes he was an amazing violinist that participated in a lot of historic recordings (aside from his work with Django he also played with Duke Ellington and a lot of other swing orchestras in America) but that's it. Nobody else really gets mentioned.

Stuff Smith is one of those musicians that were around for a long time but never really got very famous. I personally "heard" of him when I was studying that historic photo. So I was interested in his music and found this little compilation of his works that he did for various bands. Stuff on here by, err, Stuff is during 1917 to 1949 so there's a lot of big band swinging here that's practically on fire. It's a shame that we don't get to hear more of  his bebop recordings because later on Stuff really did kill dem strings. On some songs he's not that obvious while on some he get's even a solo or two. It's just so weird for me to hear a violin in a swing band among all those brass and wood instruments. Certainly worth checking out if you like big band music.

Download.