Arnold Jay Smith died peacefully on October 4 at his Brooklyn home, surrounded by family and friends.
A writer, publicist, educator, founding member of the JJA (and instigator of its 501 (c) 3 status), his health had been declining for years, and his heart finally gave out. We spoke by phone during the pandemic and once when he was hospitalized. But then I, like others, lost contact with him.
His brother Noel said that a memorial service will be held sometime in the future when arrangements can be made. Noel adds:
To say he was a jazz fan does not say anything about what AJ did and meant to the many musicians, writers, publicists and students AJ spent time with. He was a skilled practitioner of ‘the hang’, a veritable encyclopedia of stories, apocryphal and factual of the characters and personalities that make up the art form. When mentioning a musician in conversation, he would inevitably throw in, along with some bit of info or factoid, “oh yeah (fill in name here) I knew him well”. His depth of information about recordings, sessions, gigs was encyclopedic. And he loved to share it all through the courses and guest lectures he gave in colleges and venues. To hear him talk, you’d think he knew everyone! His address book (he was very old school) is filled to overflowing with the contact info for just about everyone involved in the jazz world. He could walk into a club and hang at the bar or sit at a table and hold court. And even though he was in deep conversation, he was always listening to the music. He was all about the music and the people who make it.
Arnold was a good friend. For 15 years we traveled together to the Newport Jazz Festival, which was always a highlight of the year for me. During the drive, AJ would regale me with his jazz stories and memories, even though I had to endure the occasional bad pun.
Arnold was always ready to help me when I was writing about jazz. He had a life-long passion for jazz and was a strong advocate for the music. He began writing about jazz for the student newspaper at Brooklyn College. In high school, he played piano. (Arnold also had an MBA and worked on Wall Street for 25 years or so. He told me that he socialized with Bernie Madoff and his wife, but was smart enough not to invest with him).
Arnold wrote about jazz for many publications, and was for a time in the 1970s the East Coast editor for DownBeat. As an educator, he taught a course “Jazz Insights” for 26 years at the New School, where each week he’d bring in a guest jazz musician to interview for the class. He later was an adjunct professor of jazz history at New Jersey City College.
Arnold donated his huge collection of jazz recordings, tapes and other memorabilia to University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s music research center. He had taken part in the secretly planned trip to Cuba in 1977 with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Earl “Fatha” Hines and David Amram, among others. It was his tapes of the Latin-jazz-rock group Irakere that led to the Cuban band releasing an album on Columbia, introducing Paquito d’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval and Chucho Valdes to U.S. listeners.
Rest In Peace my friend. You lived a good life.
