Local jazz trumpeter Paul Smoker dies at 75

Trumpeter Paul Smoker, a blunt-spoken champion of jazz who stubbornly played on for the last years of his life with the aid of an artificial heart, died Saturday afternoon at his home in Bushnell’s Basin, surrounded by family. He was 75.

A director of the jazz studies program at Nazareth College, Mr. Smoker appeared on more than 50 albums, both his own and with musicians such as Anthony Braxton. He also worked with notables such as David Liebman, Don Byron, Barry Altschul and Art Pepper.

“He was certainly dedicated to jazz, his students, his trumpet,” said his wife, Dr. Beverly Smoker, professor of music and chair of the Nazareth College Music Department. “Jazz was his life.”

An Iowa native, Mr. Smoker studied trumpet at the University of Iowa, although it was not quite the launching pad to jazz that he seemed to crave. Like most music schools of the day, the curriculum was strictly classical. “When Paul went to school, he couldn’t play a note of jazz in school,” said Beverly, a classical pianist. “It wasn’t allowed.

“He had four degrees in classical trumpet, but he learned jazz by listening to people like Harry James. They had to rent a hotel room downtown to play jazz.”

►Smoker in 2010: Life, and limit, of technology

But Mr. Smoker was to become a part of the broadening of college music programs. He taught trumpet, jazz and contemporary classical music at the University of Iowa, Northern Iowa, Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Coe College. “For his students, he played the traditional repertoire, because he knew that was what they needed,” Beverly said.

Yet Mr. Smoker’s own jazz interests were diverse, and frequently ranged into avant-garde territory. He founded the ensembles The Paul Smoker Trio, touring the United States, Canada and Europe and recording five albums. He released three albums with Joint Venture in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Early in his career there was plenty of work in jazz hot spots like Chicago and, later, New York City.

Some of those spots were too hot. In a 2010 interview with the Democrat and Chronicle, Mr. Smoker conceded that there’d been many nights “playing drunk and stoned.

“I found out that what I was playing was not nearly as good as when I was straight,” he said. “Back in the ’70s, I played a gig on red wine. I thought I was just playing my butt off. I heard a tape of it afterward, and it was just awful. So bad, if that tape ever got out, I’d shoot myself. I sounded like I was in the second grade.”

Striking a bargain

In search of a more grounded lifestyle, Mr. Smoker and Beverly struck a bargain. Whichever one found a good teaching position first, close enough to New York City to keep their hands in the action there, that’s where they’d move. “We were both from Iowa and living in Cedar Rapids,” Beverly said. “He was traveling to New York to play about once a month, so that was the deal, yes.”

Beverly won, landing a job at Nazareth College in 1990. Mr. Smoker got a job there as well in 2001, after working gigs as composer-in-residence at Rochester’s School of the Arts and Cornell University.

He introduced The Paul Smoker Notet in 2003 at Tonic in New York City. This was an adventurous ensemble, as noted in a 2005 Democrat and Chronicle review of The Paul Smoker Notet at the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival:

►Smoker in 2000: Fascinating rhythms, unique arrangements 

“First, it was a high-pitched, muted trumpet, like a bee, or the sound the parents would make when they talked on the old Charlie Brown cartoons. Then, ‘See How They Run’ evolved into a vibrant, city streets jazz jaunt, an urban soundtrack of urgency. The first five minutes at the Big Tent by Paul Smoker, the local trumpet star, was as fine a jazz moment as there has been at this fest.

“Not that it was downhill afterward. Joined by guitarist Steve Salerno, bassist Ed Schuler and drummer Phil Haynes, Smoker’s Notet focused mostly on music from its new CD, Live at the Bop Shop, recorded at the local hipster record store. This was inventive, avant-garde stuff, big and full of sound: caffeinated, late-night noir crime jazz.”

The Notet’s last two releases were Cool Lives in 2012 and Landings in 2013.

"I'm a dinosaur"

The bad habits of his young jazz life eventually caught up to Mr. Smoker. “Staying up late, getting up early, drinking all day, smoking cigarettes, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I did it to myself,” he said. He had a heart attack in 2001, and in 2009 was re-wired with an LVAD, a Left Ventricle Assist Device. Also called Heartmate II, it was an artificial heart that stepped in for his damaged left ventricle, pumping the blood from it to what was functioning in the rest of his heart.

Now the jazzman ran on batteries, changing them every four hours, recharging them in a base unit that he carried with him. Heartmate II hummed at a constant 90 to 100 rpm. Because the blood now moved through his heart in a continuous flow, he had no pulse; his blood pressure had only one number.

“It gave him many good years,” Beverly said. “But ultimately, he reached the point were it no longer did that.”

Mr. Smoker’s playing style ranged from avant-garde to be-bop, but as a teacher he was old school. A gruff talker and no-nonsense guy, Mr. Smoker was tough on himself and his students.

“Everything is digital, and they’re missing some things when it’s not analog,” he said in that 2010 interview. “Kids can’t tell the difference between most CD files, or files that are on vinyl, and mp3 files. Their ears are not finely tuned anymore. The internet, it took the meat out of the sound. The whole culture has been sold this bill of goods, and kids can’t make judgments on what they’re getting. But they have no interest in the past. Man, these kids don’t know history and they don’t care. That’s the digital world. I’m a dinosaur. I don’t care. I see more than they do.”

Mr. Smoker is survived by his wife, sons Evan and Andrew, granddaughters Addison and Henley and a brother Phillip. Memorial Donations may be made to the Nazareth College Music Department to support Jazz Studies, or URMC Cardiology.

A memorial service and celebration of Smoker’s life, music and teaching is set for 1 p.m. May 26 in Linehan Chapel on the campus of Nazareth College, 4245 East Ave., Pittsford. The service will conclude with The Nazareth College Jazz Ensemble, former students and colleagues, and anyone who wishes to participate, followed by a reception.

“Just about his last words,” Beverly said, “were, ‘Make sure everyone gets to play who wants to.’”

JSPEVAK@gannett.com