Bill Smith

To differentiate him from the other notable Bill Smith who co-edited Coda and played avant-garde soprano saxophone, this clarinetist maintained an intermittent yet decades-long partnership with Dave Brubeck. He trained at Juilliard School and studied composition under Darius Milhaud at Mills College. Between 1947 and 1951 he belonged to the Dave Brubeck Octet, which issued a recording, and he remained eager to blend techniques from modern classical music into jazz contexts. In contrast to Brubeck, he chose an academic path and taught at USC. His sideman dates encompassed work with Red Norvo in 1957, Shelly Manne on the “Concerto for Clarinet and Combo” the same year, and three forward-looking Fantasy albums made in Paul Desmond’s absence with the Dave Brubeck Quartet from 1959 to 1961. After earning a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition, Smith lived in Italy for six years, leading the American Jazz Ensemble for part of that period. He joined the faculty at the University of Washington and, from 1982 through the 1990s, alternated with Bobby Militello as a regular member of Brubeck’s Quartet. In addition to his extensive recordings with Brubeck and several with the American Jazz Ensemble, he led sessions for Contemporary in 1959, contributed tracks from the live “Americans In Europe” concert issued by Impulse in 1963, and recorded for the Italian labels Edi-Pan in 1977 and Jazz Music in 1978.