If you know Joshua Smith only through his exploratory work with the cooperative trio Birth, you might be surprised to learn, as I did, that the saxophonist has a thriving practice playing straightahead jazz. His Friday concert at BOP STOP won’t be a standards gig, but it will show a side of the 45-year-old saxophonist that might surprise some fans.
“I’m a blue-collar jazz musician,” the 45-year-old Smith said on a video call from his home in New Orleans. “When I’m playing music of any sort–doesn’t matter what it is–if I’m playing drums, bass, saxophone, it’s better than the alternative, which is doing manual labor. The truth of the matter is that I’m a service-level jazz musician by trade.”
Smith has played his share of high-profile gigs in exalted company since the days when he, bassist Jeremy Bleich and percussionist Joe Tomino were blazing new trails as Birth. But he’s also played low-profile gigs with some of the scene’s most talked about musicians.
Take Kim Cass, who is the bassist in the quartet Smith will bring to BOP STOP. Scan the list of last year’s notable jazz recordings and you’ll find Kim Cass everywhere including Patricia Brennan’s Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic Records, 2024), the record of the year in the Francis Davis Jazz Poll, and his own Levs (Pi Recordings, 2024), a mind-blowing exhibition of next-level musical thinking.
“Kim spent maybe five or six years in the Bay Area, and I was one of the lucky men who got to work with him playing $80 jazz gigs at restaurants,” Smith said. “Listening to Kim Cass swing on a standard with no pressure and no audience and no anything is one of the most incredible things, because the guy just oozes music.”
The drummer on the tour (“A couple of dates, that’s not quite a tour, but once I hit three, I said, we’re going on tour,” Smith pointed out with a laugh), is Jeff Mellott. “What I love about Jeff is that he’s never played with Kim, but Kim is one of his big iconic influences,” Smith said. “When I called him for the tour, he goes, ‘Man, I tried to explain to my wife what it meant to go on tour with Kim Cass. The only thing I could tell her was that the last time I saw Kim Cass play, he made me cry.’”
Mellott, a mainstay on the Cincinnati scene, goes back a long way with Keigo Hirakawa, the quartet’s pianist, but not as far back as Smith does.
“Keigo and I became friends back when I was maybe 16,” Smith said, when the two were members of the Ohio Jazz Orchestra for Youth (OJOY). At the time, Hirakawa was playing soprano saxophone and a bit of piano, and OJOY didn’t have a soprano chair. “Our director Paul Ferguson, who’s a man that I totally adore, heard that Keigo could play and knew it was important for him to be in the group.”
That experience opened a door for the Japanese-born pianist and began musical partnership and friendship that is now almost three decades old.
When in 2007, the two recorded a co-led album, Hessler-Cabrillo Run Down (self-released, 2023), Hirakawa had just received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Cornell University and seemed headed for an academic career (he is professor of electrical engineering at the University of Dayton).
“When we made that record,” Smith said, I didn’t expect for Keigo to end up pursuing music. What if your friend who did something as a hobby, then became one of the best practitioners of it? I loved playing with him when he was really good, but now he’s just great.”
The great thing about being Joshua Smith is the chance to make great music with great players and call it a good day’s work. “For years I’ve wanted to book something that honors my straightahead interests, because as much as I am satisfied when I get to play that way as background music, there is something incredible about the ability to play a standard for an audience.
I love playing jazz for an audience that loves jazz.”
Joshua Smith Quartet with Kim Cass, bass; Keigo Hirakawa, piano and Jeff Mellott, drums, Friday, May 9, 8 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, Tickets $20, available here.
NOTE: This article was written by a real human being. No artificial intelligence or generative language models were used in its creation.
Red beans and ricely yours,
jc
