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Forty-five year old Kansas City resident, Harold Smith, Jr., knows how to make jazz rhythms crescendo on canvas.  He has been painting works of art in his spare time for the last 35 years.  Through his side-hustle (Smith is a teacher by day), he is able to translate jazz notes for objective observers and with paint give birth to the most natural relationship between iconic jazz tunes and the icons themselves – like Coltrane, Monk, Davis and more.  A trip to his website, simply titled, www.haroldsmithart.com, bears this out, along with press articles and an exhibition schedule and a banging virtual gallery on flickr.  His works are a cacophony of dissonant colors, tones and textures that together make for a perfect express ionistic jazz tune.      

Q. Describe your relationship with jazz.  When did you fall in love with it?  And when you connect with it emotionally and spiritually?  How does it make you feel?

A. I listened to a lot of jazz growing up, and I had a favorite uncle who was a jazz musician. I fell in love with jazz when I was still in elementary school, I just didn’t realize it.  When I connect with jazz, I feel a sense of freedom, belonging and acceptance as jazz represents individual expression within the context of group expression.
Q. Who are your top three jazz artists?

A. Tough one.  Right now, I am listening to lot of Coltrane, as always.  I am also digging Christian Scott and Esperanza Spalding.  She’s incredible.  

Q. What has compelled you to re-create jazz on canvas?

A. Just a desire to express the energy and spirit I feel in jazz, almost like an outlet.

Q. From the intensity of your work, in my mind’s eye I see you alone in a room creating with Dizzy, Bird or Monk blasting, getting you caught up artistically.  Do you paint to jazz music?  Recreate the scene when it’s you alone in a room with your canvas and your paintbrush.

A. Yes, I paint to jazz a lot.  I’ll put some jazz on the CD player, listen for a while, maybe sketch a bit and just let it happen.

Q. What motivates you to paint in general.  Do you focus only on jazz themes?

A. I also paint some socially conscious art and some afrocentric art.  I think it’s all about expression — a desire to get it out of my soul and connect it with others.

Q. What do you like most about your work?  What do you like least?  How does this shape your being an artist?

A. Another tough question.   I like that I enjoy doing it.  It just comes naturally and easily for me.  What do I like the least?  The fact that a lot of paintings are stacking up in my home and not in other people’s homes.  I think it makes it a bit more of a struggle to let go because in the back of my mind I wonder if a new work will just end up sitting in the house.

Q. If you had the chance to meet one jazz great, who would you choose and why?

A. I’d like to meet Duke Ellington. He was a man who had a very high barometer of quality, had seen America at it’s worst in terms of race relations but did not let it poison his work and still managed to make a musical statement (“Black, Brown, and Beige”).  [He also] felt that he was a representative of his people and was determined to convey excellence in his lifestyle to represent us.  That’s beautiful and I’d just like to talk to him about it.  Plus, he really knew how to wear a suit!

Q. Which African-American (or other) painter has most influenced your work and why?

A. Hmmmm, another tough one. I think the artist that has most influenced me is Matisse with his brave and adventurous use of color.

Q. If you had to choose between painting and jazz, which would you choose and why.

A. Painting.  I think….

Q. What is your advice for other young artists who have a gift, but are too afraid to move forward with it?

A. Be authentic, treat other artists with respect, don’t let the money become the main motivation, and use all avenues of the Internet to get your work where it can be seen.  Above all, rememb er that a gift comes from the creator and with that gift comes a responsibility. The primary responsibility is to not be shy about your gift and simply put it out there for the benefit of others.

Q. What are your future plans for your art?  What would be your pinnacle? 

A. I plan to just keep painting, maybe moving more into oil paints.  My pinnacle?  To be able to look back and feel that I used my gift the way it was intended.

This story is filed under: Art Noire, Arts & Culture