In the early 1920s, Smith played with local Memphis jazz bands before going on the road with
territory bands such as the Connor and McWilliams Boston Serenaders, William Holloway and the Merrymakers, and Eli Rice's Plantation Cotton Pickers. In Kansas City he led his own bands and in 1930 played with
George E. Lee Arriving in New York City in 1934, he worked with
Benny Carter,
Claude Hopkins, and
Hot Lips Page and into the 1940s worked in the bands of
Lucky Millinder,
Andy Kirk,
Snub Mosley, among others. He composed "I Dreamt I Dwelled in Harlem". ==Discography==