Tom and Matt Smith

Tom Smith (along with son Matt Smith) are father and son jazz musicians best known for their work in the United States, Eastern Europe and China.

Tom Smith (father) is a long time American university jazz professor, trombonist, researcher, wind symphony conductor, program creator and multiple Senior Fulbright Professor of Music at the Romanian National University of Music and Tibiscus University, with Senior Fulbright Professional Specialist appointments at University KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, South Africa) and the Serbian Academy of Music in Belgrade, as well as numerous American high school and community college positions, alongside an extended professorship at Pfeiffer University, and a three-year appointment as the first full-time American jazz studies professor at a Chinese university. In May 2013, he became the 21st inductee into the DownBeat Jazz Education Hall of Fame.

Tom was introduced to fine arts at an early age by his father, a noted trombonist, best known for his work with New Orleans traditional jazz artist Murphy Campo. Tom Smith was the longest continuous member of the North Carolina Artist-in-Residence Program (1984–1992), while based at three separate North Carolina community colleges. A widely acknowledged pioneer of the American community jazz movement (having founded over fifty large community jazz ensembles) his best known group was the Unifour Jazz Ensemble, an eighteen-piece big band and first entirely state funded big band in the United States, that placed seventh in the 1988 Down Beat Readers Poll. In that same poll, Smith placed fifth in the trombone category. As an improvising soloist, he has performed and toured with Louie Bellson, Clark Terry, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Chris Potter, the New York Voices, Nicholas Payton, Herb Ellis, Donald Byrd, Darius Brubeck and the Manhattan Transfer. Smith is also a noted music historian and researcher. In 2001 he and his research partner Gary Westbrook received recognition for identifying the musical fingerprint for identification of unknown personnel on early recordings. This and subsequent research has received widespread media exposure via National Public Radio's Weekly Edition and Tech TV. In 2014, Tom received the Brubeck Award for Jazz Research.

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