Geoffrey Smith (born 1943,

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

) is a British-based American radio presenter, author and former jazz percussionist. Smith was the regular presenter of

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

's '' Jazz Record Requests'' for over twenty years and has also presented other programmes on the network.

Biography

Smith's father was a pianist who also played banjo in his local dance-band in Detroit. Smith's own active jazz career ended in 1969, discouraged by the rise of rock music. In 1973 he came to Britain to complete a PhD, where he began a new career as a freelance journalist and lecturer, contributing articles and reviews to '' Country Life'', ''

New Society ''New Society'' was a weekly magazine of social inquiry and social and cultural comment, published in the United Kingdom from 1962 to 1988. It drew on the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, social history and s ...

'' and ''The Spectator'' among others. He remains a regular contributor to ''Country Life'' and ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'', for whom he writes on music and other cultural subjects. His first book, published in 1983, was a survey of the

Savoy Opera Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which imp ...

. His biography of

Stéphane Grappelli Stéphane Grappelli (; 26 January 1908 – 1 December 1997) was a French jazz violinist. He is best known as a founder of the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands. ...

followed in 1987. In 1988 he adapted the Grappelli book into a series for

, the first of his many broadcasts for the network. In 1991, on the death of

Peter Clayton Peter James Clayton (25 June 1927 – 10 August 1991) was an English jazz presenter on BBC Radio, jazz critic, and author. From October 1968 until his death in August 1991, Clayton presented jazz recordings, interviews, studio performances, and ...

, he became the regular presenter of ''Jazz Record Requests'' until 2012 when

Alyn Shipton Alyn Shipton (born 24 November 1953) is an English jazz author, presenter, critic, and jazz bassist. Early life Shipton became interested in jazz in his youth and formally studied cello, but also played double bass in a school jazz band. He pl ...

took over as the presenter. A new series hosted by Smith, ''Geoffrey Smith's Jazz'', began on 6 May 2012 and ran until 27 October 2019.

Books

* ''The

s: A New Guide to

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen com ...

'', March 1985, Universe Pub, * ''

: A Biography'', 1987, Michael Joseph,

References

External links

BBC profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Geoffrey 1943 births BBC Radio 3 presenters British non-fiction writers British radio personalities Living people British male writers British male non-fiction writers