Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
Drummer Viola Smith died Oct. 21 at the age of 107 in Costa Mesa, California.
(Photo: YouTube)Viola Smith, a pioneering big band-era drummer known as the “fastest girl drummer in the world” who wielded explosive sticks behind a massive 12-drum kit, died at her home in Costa Mesa, California, on Oct. 21. She was 107.
A trailblazer known for her pyrotechnics on stage, where she exploded with a ferocity that belied her diminutive stature, Smith was an equally fierce proponent of women’s rights in the male-dominated world of swing-era jazz.
“Viola Smith was not only one of the pioneering women instrumentalists of American popular music, she was an advocate for the rights of all women musicians trying to make a living in the sexist music business,” said drummer and bandleader Allison Miller, one of the countless female jazz players who owe a debt to Smith. “As a working musician for 90-plus years, she proved that women could master their craft, be a musician among musicians, display versatility and get the job done.”
A prodigy from the get-go, Smith still was a young girl in the late 1920s when she became the drummer for a family band, the all-girl Schmitz Sisters Orchestra (later the Smith Sisters Orchestra) in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin. In nearby Fond du Lac, her parents ran a concert hall. Though her father was a strict taskmaster who demanded long practice sessions from his eight daughters, it was a pretty sweet trade-off for Smith, who took to the drums like a fish to water. “So long as we practiced, we barely had to do work around the house,” she told the Women of Rock Oral History Project in 2018.
Much more than a novelty act, The Smith Sisters could swing with the best of the big-bands, and quickly graduated from local weddings and the state-fair circuit. They frequently traveled to radio gigs in Chicago, where they bested an all-male band playing “Rhapsody In Blue,” and in 1936 embarked on a year-long national tour as part of an all-girl revue sponsored by the Major Bowes Amateur Hour talent contest.
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
Sep 22, 2026 1:39 PM
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.
Oct 6, 2026 1:33 PM
As emcee Mark Ruffin noted at the commencement of an epic tribute to saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Cathedral of Saint…
Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.
Sep 8, 2026 11:52 AM
It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 AM
The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
