Bro. Major Nathaniel Clarke Smith, “America’s Greatest Colored Bandmaster??? exerted considerable influence on the development of Kansas City jazz, drilling his students on the basics of music theory and performance. Many first generation Kansas City jazz musicians studied with Bro. Smith, including Walter Page, Julia Lee, Harlan Leonard, Leroy Maxey, Lamar Wright, Jasper Allen, and DePriest Wheeler. Harlan Leonard remembered Bro. Smith as “the music program at Lincoln??? High School. He had “a vivid and commanding personality. He was short, chubby, gruff, military in bearing, wore glasses, and was never seen without his full uniform and decorations. His language was rather rough and occasionally shocking to the few young ladies who were taking music classes, though never offensive. Bro. Smith simply ran a tight ship … He drilled the Lincoln marching bands until they were the best in the area, some said the best of their kind in the Middle West.???
Bro. Smith arrived at Lincoln High School well equipped to take charge of the music and military programs. Born on July 31, 1877, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Bro. Nathaniel Clark Smith attended the Army Service School where he studied with German bandmaster, Professor H. E. Gungle. After graduation, Bro. Smith briefly worked for the publishing house of Carl Hoffman in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1891 he began his military career as a trumpeter at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
In 1907, Bro. Smith received a commission as bandmaster at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, awarded by a board member, Theodore Roosevelt. Booker T. Washington enthusiastically received Bro. Smith, who in turn composed The Tuskegee March in honor of Washington. Advancing the music program, Bro. Smith organized touring bands that traveled across the nation by Pullman cars. On July 3, 1913, the Tuskegee Band, led by Bro. Smith, performed at Convention Hall in Kansas City for the national convention of the Elks. That falls, at the request of his benefactor Theodore Roosevelt, Bro. Smith joined the military department at Western Baptist University in Kansas City, Kansas, a historic institution built on the site in Quindaro where abolitionist John Brown ferried slaves to freedom.
Bro. Smith quickly established military discipline and training to the choir and bands at Western University. In January 1915, Bro. Smith became commandant of Western’s Military department. He presented concerts in the community, combining the choruses of Western and Allen Chapel. That summer he led the band at the newly opened Lincoln Electric Park, a local amusement park, and organized a 260-member band and chorus. In the summer of 1916, Bro. Smith directed the Coleridge-Taylor Music Settlement School and in the fall, he joined the faculty of Lincoln High School, a move facilitated by Western University’s chronic financial problems. Lincoln needed a bandmaster as well as military instructor and Bro. Smith fit the bill for both positions.
While jazz was not part of the Lincoln curriculum, Bro. Smith did not discourage his students from playing it. A description of the activities of the music program in the 1919 Lincoln yearbook, the Lincolnian, includes an addendum praising Walter Page’s jazz orchestra: “lastly, I must not forget Page’s jazz orchestra that furnishes music during the lunch period. It is some orchestra. I say it is!??? In 1922, Bro. Smith publicly embraced jazz by making “a plea for the catchy type of music made famous by Lieutenant Europe in France, and commonly called jazz??? at a memorial service for James Reese Europe held in Chicago.
Bro. Smith moved to Chicago in 1922, organizing Pullman Porter singing groups and teaching at Wendell Phillips High School, where his students included Lionel Hampton. Moving to St. Louis in 1931, Bro. Smith joined the faculty at Sumner High School. In 1932, Bro. Smith won the Wannamaker Prize for his composition, Negro Folk Suite (shown right), performed the following year by the St. Louis Symphony. The CBS network broadcast Smith’s St. Louis Blues radio program, originating from KMOX, for three years.
1903 Bro. Smith organized Chicago’s first black symphony orchestra, which debuted in March of that year.
Bro. N. Clarke Smith was bandmaster of the 8th Illinois Regiment and received a bachelor and master of music from the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Bro. N. Clarke Smith became a member of Sigma in Chicago in 1925.
In June 1935, Bro. Smith returned to Kansas City to concentrate on publishing his music. After walking from his home to the Musicians Protective Union Local 627 at 1823 Highland, Bro. Smith suffered a fatal stroke and died on October 8, 1935
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