The Fourth North Wales Jazz Guitar Festival, a five day event of concerts and guitar courses, held from August 13th to 17th, 2003, was a most memorable event. Each of the players who performed at Wrexham would have drawn crowds of Jazz Guitar lovers as single acts. Having brought together at one venue Howard Alden, Gene Bertoncini, Jimmy Bruno, Bireli Lagrene, Mundell Lowe, Trefor Owen, Gary Potter, Louis Stewart and Martin Taylor, all of whom played in various groups and settings is an achievement that is hard to match indeed. To receive tuition from some of these outstanding players was yet another series of climaxes. What topped it off though was the masterclass given by Johnny Smith on August 14th between 16.00 and 18.00 hrs. The auditorium at Yale College was filled with the 81 participants of the courses and the other players when Johnny Smith was talking about technical aspects of the guitar, telling about his life as a guitarist and guitar expert while he exemplified the lesson on Mundell Lowe’s blonde Mapson archtop guitar. He would answer questions in a very modest, sometimes humorous way which was characteristic of the entire presentation.
When the event was nearing its end, someone asked: "When are you going to play for us?" - Johnny Smith, who seemed to be taken by surprise, though not completely, pondered for a second, and there was definitely suspense in the air, until he said: "Hell, why not." It was the promise of the year for us, as the majority of the audience had only heard him on record. Before he started to play he remarked that he had not played for audiences in the last fifteen years and would we consider that. At that point he could have played "Old McDonald had a Farm" and everyone would have loved it. Instead he related that he once had played at a wedding of a friend’s daughter where he was sitting in a position a little secluded from the ceremony. Consequently he could not see the bride and the groom walking in. "Then ... [he said:] ... I started playing this tune." It was Stephen Sondheim’s "Send in the Clowns" which he now played for us. The audience was overwhelmed and paid undivided attention to the very last note. After that the applause broke loose and everyone stood up for a standing ovation.
Later that evening at the tribute concert for Johnny Smith, in which Johnny's ex-student Gene Bertoncini, Jimmy Bruno, Mundell Lowe, Trefor Owen and Louis Stewart gave their best, our hero received from the mayor of Wrexham the lifetime award bestowed on him by the North Wales Jazz Society.
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