Born in St. Louis, MO, on January 24, 1920, James Robert Forrest Junior’s early musical development was at the hands of his musical parents, including his first professional work at the age of 12 with his mother’s band, “Eva Forrest’s Stompers”. He received at least part of his formal musical training at Sumner High School under the tutelage of the legendary bandmaster Major N. (Nathaniel) Clark Smith. Smith had developed a reputation as “America’s Greatest Colored Bandmaster,” while teaching, during the 1920s, at both Lincoln High School in Kansas City and Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago. Smith would have had considerable influence over the early development of mid-western American music as he instructed Lionel Hampton, Milt Hinton, Ray Nance (all in Chicago) and Walter Page (in Kansas City). Page later became a seminal member of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils, the Bennie Moten Orchestra and the Count Basie Orchestra. In 1930, Smith relocated to St. Louis and remained in St. Louis until his return to Kansas City, shortly before his death, in June of 1935. Forrest and his contemporary Ernie Wilkins were both taught by Major Smith at Sumner, sometime between 1930 and 1933: Forrest would have likely been attending grades 6 through 9 .
Sources
- University of Missouri - Kansas City. Musicians Local No. 627 and the Mutual Musicians Foundation: The Cradle of Kansas City Jazz. http://www.umkc.edu/orgs/local627/introduction/smith/ (accessed July 28, 2009).
- Buchner, Reginald T. “Rediscovering Major N. Clark Smith.” Music Educators Journal 71, no. 6 (February 1985): 36-42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3396473 (accessed July 11, 2008).
- Cunningham, Lyn Driggs, and Jimmy Jones. Sweet, Hot and Blue, 54-56. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989.
© Ken Hoffman - 2009
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