Geoffrey Smith

Who is Geoffrey Smith?

Geoffrey Smith is a British-based American radio presenter, author and former jazz percussionist. Smith was the regular presenter of BBC Radio 3's Jazz Record Requests for over twenty years and has also presented other programmes on the network.

Smith's father was a pianist who also played banjo in his local dance-band in Detroit. Smith's own active jazz career ended in 1969, discouraged by the rise of rock music. In 1973 he came to Britain to complete a PhD, where he began a new career as a freelance journalist and lecturer, contributing articles and reviews to Country Life, New Society and The Spectator among others. He remains a regular contributor to Country Life and The Economist, for whom he writes on music and other cultural subjects.

His first book, published in 1983, was a survey of the Savoy Opera. His biography of Stéphane Grappelli followed in 1987. In 1988 he adapted the Grappelli book into a series for BBC Radio 3, the first of his many broadcasts for the network. In 1991, on the death of Peter Clayton, he became the regular presenter of Jazz Record Requests. It emerged in March 2012 that Alyn Shipton was to take over as the presenter of JRR. A new series hosted by Smith, Geoffrey Smith's Jazz, began hours after Shipton's first JRR.