Story: Jazz and dance bands

Walter Smith's Jazz Band, around 1927

Walter Smith's Jazz Band, around 1927

Walter Smith (Ngāti Kahungunu) is sometimes credited with forming Auckland's first jazz band. Smith studied music in Salt Lake City, Utah, and later became a music teacher in Auckland. His jazz bands played in milk bars, cabarets, dance halls and other venues around the city until the 1940s. This photo from about 1927 shows three unidentified brass players at left, Sidney David Kamau on clarinet, Dinah Greening on banjo, Marjorie Greening on piano and Smith on saxophone. 

Using this item

Hocken Library, University of Otago
Reference: S14-138a

Permission of the Hocken Library Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago, must be obtained before any re-use of this image. Further information may be obtained from the Library through its website.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page:

Chris Bourke, 'Jazz and dance bands - Early New Zealand jazz bands', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/44942/walter-smiths-jazz-band-around-1927 (accessed 29 March 2024)

Story by Chris Bourke, published 22 Oct 2014