Ginger Smock (1920–1995) was one of the first women to record “hot” jazz improvisations on the violin, and one of the first female African American bandleaders on television. Her horn-like solos and dramatic stage presence electrified audiences across the United States. I worked with Lydia Bennett, a member of her extended family, and Dean Reeves, son of Canadian jazz violin collector John Reeves, to bring their collections of Ginger Smock memorabilia — including letters, press clippings, photos, cassette tapes and reel-to-reels, handwritten compositions and arrangements, and even Smock’s violin — to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. In November 2020, I wrote a Strings Magazine cover story on Ginger Smock. In 2023, I published an article in the Journal of the Society for American Music entitled “Ginger Smock: Narratives of Perpetual Discovery, Jazz Historiography, and the ‘Swinging Lady of the Violin.'”

You can hear most of Ginger Smock’s early recordings on the excellent CD Strange Blues: Ginger Smock, The Lovely Lady with the Violin, Los Angeles Studio & Demo Recordings 1946-1958 (AB Fable, 2005), compiled by jazz violin historian Anthony Barnett; listen here to my favourite track, “Strange Blues.” Since acquiring the Ginger Smock collection, the Smithsonian has twice featured Smock on its website: “The Trailblazing Violinist You Might Not Have Heard Of” and “The Woman with the Violin: Ginger Smock and the Los Angeles Jazz Scene.” Learn more about Central Avenue through the Central Avenue Sounds Oral History Project and the Black Music and Musicians in Los Angeles Oral History Collection, both at UCLA. Watch an interview with Ginger Smock by historian and educator Bette Cox.