Jazz Articles about Lee Smith

About Lee Smith

Album Review

Greg Farnese: Oh No, I'm In Love Again

Read "Oh No, I'm In Love Again" reviewed by Acacia Grace

by Acacia Grace
October 29, 2026

Greg Farnese brings an easygoing charm to Oh No, I'm in Love Again, an album that balances personality with a polished, straight-ahead jazz sensibility. The record opens conversationally, offering a glimpse of Farnese's playful character before settling into arrangements shaped by a classic horn section, crisp hi-hat patterns, upright bass, and fluid jazz piano. His warm, unassuming voice gives the material an inviting quality, while his phrasing suggests the theatrical instincts of a seasoned stage performer. Throughout the ...

Album Review

Susie Meissner: I Wish I Knew

Read "I Wish I Knew" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 3, 2020

I wish I knew why the talented Philadelphia-based singer Susie Meissner chose to open her salute to the Great American Songbook with the only tune on the album that doesn't really qualify: Curtis Lewis' “The Great City." It's not a bad song but Cole Porter or Johnny Mandel it ain't. On the bright side, Meissner recovers quickly on the fourth album under her name with a burnished rendition of the title theme, a memorable composition by the legendary Hollywood songwriting ...

Album Review

Susie Meissner: I Wish I Knew

Read "I Wish I Knew" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 8, 2020

Over the past decade and three previous recordings, Philadelphia-based vocalist Susie Meissner has crafted an intelligently conceived and thoughtfully paced survey of the Great American Songbook. Meissner's considerations of the standard jazz repertoire, in concert with pianist John Shaddy's sturdy arrangements and educated performance manner, have emerged, evolving from chaste and reverent beginnings, into rich and supple layerings of stylistic and technical outreach with each subsequent recording. Meissner's debut, I'll Remember April (Lydian Jazz, 2009), emerged as a ...

Album Review

Susie Meissner: Tea for Two

Read "Tea for Two" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 3, 2020

Natural but determined evolution makes for well conceived and produced projects. Vocalist Susie Meissner has proved this statement as she progressed from her debut recording I'll Remember April (Lydian Jazz, 2009), through her sophomore effort, I'm Confessin' (Lydian Jazz, 2011) to the present Tea for Two. Using a well-worn repertoire, Meissner, mostly with the support of pianist John Shaddy and his regular rhythm section (bassist Lee Smith and drummer Dan Monaghan), has steadily moved from solid, if not predictable, arrangements ...

Extended Analysis

Lee Smith: My Kind of Blues

by Victor L. Schermer
August 6, 2015

After nearly 40 years as a working bassist, Lee Smith has become a Philadelphia legend, playing gig after gig with just about everyone, including the Delphonics, Mongo Santamaria, Dizzy Gillespie, Roland Kirk, Lionel Hampton, and a host of Philadelphians, including Larry McKenna, Tom Lawton, Bootsie Barnes, Odean Pope, and the list goes on and on. In 2012, he released his first album as leader, composer, and arranger, Sittin' on a Secret (Vectordisc, 2012). In a review of that album, Bruce ...