Quintet 1979

If I could pick a musical premiere out of the past that I could have attended, I would probably choose one of those evenings when Mozart and Haydn took the two viola parts in the first performances of Mozart's string quintets. It's something to wonder at, anyway. The string quintets are not only Mozart's greatest chamber music, they are among the most profoundly inspired pieces of music by anyone for any instruments. Three of them can be found on this budget priced set, superbly performed, along with the Horn Quintet, and the Quintet for Piano and Winds, which inspired Beethoven to compose a not quite as successful sequel. Greatness, folks, pure and simple.

Louis Smith was a talented, but underrecorded, straight-ahead bop trumpeter who led two dates in the '50s before retiring to teach at the University of Michigan and the nearby Ann Arbor Public School system. For most of his career, he remained a teacher, making a brief comeback in the late '70s before returning to education. It wasn't until the mid-'90s that he began a recording career in earnest, turning out a series of albums for the Steeplechase label. A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Louis Smith began playing trumpet as a teenager. He graduated high school with a scholarship to Tennessee State University, where he studied music and became a member of the Tennessee State Collegians. Folllowing his college graduation, Smith did a little graduate work at Tennessee before transferring to the University of Michigan, where he studied with professor Clifford Lillya.

Snowball was founded by four of the most distinguished European musicians. Drummer Curt Cress shortly before left Doldinger's Passport. Together with Dave King (bass, keyboards, Ex-Embryo), who amongst others played with Volker Kriegel, Donna Summer and Wolfgang Dauner he built the core of this new supergroup. Keyboarder Kristian Schultze, also from Passport, joined them. The quartet was complete with Roye Albrighton, guitar-player and singer for long years of the band Nektar.
The band played a funk oriented progressive jazz-rock similar to Passport, with a rockier edge. The first record Defroster was released in 1978…