A Documentary about Willie "The Lion" Smith

by Alan Greenblatt

If you're at all a student of jazz history, sooner or later you come across the name Willie "The Lion" Smith. The Lion, born in 1897, was one of the earliest important piano players in jazz and an important influence on Thomas "Fats" Waller and Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington. (Love those nicknames!)

But that might be about all you'd ever find out. The Lion didn't make as many recordings as he should have and his compositions are so challenging that many players don't want to go anywhere near them. He's mainly remembered musically for his lovely, melodic tune "Echoes of Spring."

You could learn a lot more about him from an excellent documentary called "Willie the Lion," which Marc Fields made for New Jersey public television. You would learn, for example, that although he was an African-American, The Lion was Jewish and even sang as a cantor in a synagogue. You will learn he was an influence on many other pianists aside from Waller and Ellington as a regular teacher of youngsters who adored him, despite his gruff manner.

The Lion always wore a derby and had a cigar jammed into his mouth. He was proud of his prowess and would rudely dismiss other pianists who he didn't consider up to snuff, kicking them off the stool and showing them what he could do. He was kind of in a school by himself, although he was pals with James P. Johnson, another nearly forgotten but important jazz pioneer.

The Fields film shows the expected decline so beloved of biographical documentaries, but perks up again toward the end. The Lion lived long enough -- into the seventies -- to tell funny stories on talk shows. He was lumped incorrectly with the Dixielanders when a little bit of nostalgia for early jazz blossomed, but anyone who heard him knew he was playing a gutsier type of music called stride. One of the strengths of Fields' film is that is has the patience and intelligence to actually talk about the music, not just the personality, explaining for example that stride is a piano form that calls for a rolling left hand.

The Web site for the film, which includes much info in itself, is at http://www.njn.net/artsculture/williethelion/

The film was shown a couple of weeks back at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History as part of "jazz appreciation month," something the museum and some other entities came up with this year. Fields was interviewed by John Edward Hasse, a power in Smithsonian jazz circles, who kept asking Fields how his approach differed from Ken Burns.

This was all supposed to be cheeky and scandalous, but it's clear that the Smithsonian itself has adopted the Burns approach, namely, a "Great Man," biographical view of jazz history. Its appreciation month consisted mainly of tributes to the likes of Benny Goodman and Ella Fitzgerald, which I missed, as well as a short afternoon program recreating the sounds of the twin-trombone band led during the 1950s by J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding.

It was a lovely little show, featuring two New York trombonists, Sam Burris and Jason Jackson, who had very different styles, and a local rhythm section consisting of Robert Redd, Clarence Seay and Lenny Robinson. What made the show a success was the combination of the skill of Johnson's original arrangements (he went on to spend most of his career scoring TV shows) and the affection the musicians had for the material. It gave them a chance to play unfamiliar harmonics on familiar tunes such as "Blue Monk" and Cole Porter's "I Concentrate on You" and "What Is This Thing Called Love."

And one more thing. I haven't done a good enough job in this column promoting the musical offerings at the Library of Congress. The library, for instance, screened last year the British musical program that most of the musical clips in "Willie the Lion" were derived from. I went to the library a couple of weeks back for a superb chamber concert featuring the Rossetti String Quartet and Jean-Yves Thibaudet and will be going back for two more jazz shows this month.

Tickets to Library of Congress events are free but you can get them in advance through Ticketmaster. I'm not a fan of extortionist ticket service fees but it is nice to pay about $3.50 to go to a "free" event and actually be guaranteed a seat. Especially as the fall approaches and they announce the next season, keep an eye on upcoming shows at http://www.loc.gov/rr/perform/concert/