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.