Jazz, early years of bebop Smalls left Charleston with the Carolina Cotton Pickers, "so I laid in bed all of 1952, til March 1953". Recovering, Smalls shifted his musical career to serve as
music director/arranger for singers
Eartha Kitt,
Ella Fitzgerald,
Sammy Davis Jr.,
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles,
Clyde McPhatter,
Roy Hamilton and
Brook Benton. He recorded
Bennie Green with Art Farmer in 1956 and was, for many years, a regular with
Sy Oliver's nine-piece "Little Big-Band" including, from 1974 to 1984, a regular stint in New York's
Rainbow Room. In the 1970s Smalls returned to jazz-recording, including four solo tracks for The Complete Master Jazz Piano Series in 1970, with
Sy Oliver in 1973,
Texas Twister with
Buddy Tate in 1975,
Swing and Things in 1976 and 'Caravan' in France in 1978. In 1980 Smalls was featured playing piano in
The Cotton Club, directed by
Francis Ford Coppola. ==References==