Charles Edward Smith (June 8, 1904 in Thomaston, Connecticut – December 16, 1970 in New York City) was an American jazz author and critic. He was the author or editor of several important early books on jazz history.
With essays in journals such as the Symposium, Daily Worker and Esquire, Smith was among the early jazz critics in the 1930s. With Frederic Ramsey (1915–1995) he published the book Jazzmen, which appeared in 1939 and, with Wilder Hobson's American Jazz Music, was one of America's first jazz books, with articles on groups like the Austin High School Gang[3] and interviews From early jazz musicians like Willie Cornish, Papa Jack Laine, Leon Roppolo and Nick LaRocca.[4] Smith and Ramsey argued that then-popular swing was rooted stylistically in blues and traditional jazz.[5] In the course of the research on the book, the interviewed musicians mentioned the name Bunk Johnson again and again; This led to the then-forgotten trumpeter of New Orleans Jazz being rediscovered by Bill Russell in 1942.[6]
With the 1942 Jazz Record Book, an attempt was made to generate a canon of important jazz records, which was later taken up by many other writers, including Marshall Stearns's The Story of Jazz, Joachim-Ernst Berendt/Günther Huesmann's jazz book , Barry Kernfeld's Encyclopedia of Jazz, and Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune.[7]