(December 24th 1908 - January 16th 1991)

Cladys "Jabbo" Smith was born in Pembroke, Georgia in 1908 and raised at the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston, South Carolina from the age of six. There he first learned to play trumpet and trombone and began traveling with the "Jenkins" band. After leaving the orphanage at age sixteen Jabbo played with bands in New Jersey and Manhattan before ending up in Chicago in 1928 following a tour with James P. Johnson's Orchestra. In the Windy City he made the bulk of his best known recordings in the late '20s with his band the "Rhythm Aces" as the only jazz artists ever, billed as a rival to Louis Armstrong.