Joseph C. Smith

Joseph Cyrus Smith (August 13, 1883 – March 22, 1965) was an American violinist, composer, dance band leader, and recording artist, as well as a Broadway performer whose stage appearances spanned from 1904 to 1939. Born in Sag Harbor, New York, Smith was of Russian ancestry on his father's side and Austrian on his mother's. He began working as a musician at the age of 16, and by 1903 had established himself in dance band circles.

Smith's career as a bandleader gained significant momentum in 1914 when he secured the position of resident dance band leader at New York's Plaza Hotel, a post he held for nine years. He played a notable role in the shift away from the heavy sound of pre-World War I military marching bands toward the lighter dance music that defined the 1920s. Though his ensembles were not jazz units in the contemporary sense, Smith incorporated jazz colorings into his arrangements. His approach, however, notably avoided the use of instrumental soloists, a characteristic that would eventually contribute to his sound becoming dated and his decline as a recording artist.

As a recording artist, Smith was active from 1916 to 1925. His first sessions were for Victor Records, and while his initial releases met with modest results, several records released in late 1917 became major sellers. Joel Whitburn estimates that 21 of his records ranked among the top 15 in popularity at various points. His recording of Smiles, which featured Harry Macdonough on vocals, is estimated to have reached the number one position for a week in August 1918. Smith was also the first artist to record a Cole Porter song. Much of his recorded output consisted of instrumentals, though Victor Records occasionally assigned in-house vocalists to certain sides, and many records featured medleys drawn from current Broadway productions. By 1922 his sales had declined, and he made his final Victor recordings in March of that year before recording briefly for Brunswick Records in 1923. His last recording session took place in Montreal in 1925. A compilation of his work, Songs of the Night: Dance Recordings, 1916–1925, was released by Archeophone in 2015.

Smith's Broadway credits included appearances in Frank Fay Vaudeville, the musicals Sidewalks of New York, The Chocolate Dandies, and The Talk of New York, as well as A Thousand Years Ago, among other productions. Many of his recordings during his peak years drew directly on Broadway repertoire, reflecting the close relationship between his stage and recording work.

Beyond his performance and recording career, Smith worked as an arranger for the Robbins Music Corporation from the 1920s through the 1940s. He traveled extensively in the late 1920s, leading ensembles across Canada, Europe, and both coasts of the United States, and later broadcast on Montreal's station CKAC. He settled in the New York City area during the 1930s and retired in 1945, subsequently relocating to Florida. Among the musicians who passed through his bands were Hugo Frey, Fred Guy, and Harry Raderman. Smith died of a myocardial infarction at a Miami Beach hospital on March 22, 1965, survived by his wife, Margaret Lynch.