Just The Right Note

Film remembers contributions of jazz musician

Alphonso Trent was a son of Fort Smith who was almost one of the jazz era' s greatest musicians.
Alphonso Trent was a son of Fort Smith who was almost one of the jazz era' s greatest musicians.

Count Basie. Duke Ellington. Ella Fitzgerald.

Alphonso Trent?

FAQ

‘Alphonso’s Gold’

WHEN — 1 p.m. Saturday

WHERE — Fort Smith Museum of History

COST — Free with museum admission: $7 adults, $2 children

INFO — 783-7841

When Henry Rinne became the first dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, a stranger came to his door to talk music. Cleo Toran was a elderly trumpet player recently returned from Chicago, and with him he brought stories of an African-American band leader who had lived -- and died -- in Fort Smith.

Why, wondered Rinne, now dean of the College of Fine Arts at Jacksonville (Fla.) University, was Alphonso Trent a footnote in jazz history, not a major chord. Through "grueling" research -- and the good fortune of being able to talk to Trent's widow, Essie Mae, who was living in Fort Smith at the time -- he found answers.

Trent had been born into a prominent Fort Smith family, says Leisa Gramlich, executive director of the Fort Smith Museum of History.

"Professor E.O. Trent came to Fort Smith in 1883 as principal of Howard School, the only school for black students in the region, later the well-respected Lincoln High School," she explains. "Hattie Smith Trent was president of the Twin City Hospital Guild, the only black hospital. The Trents owned a considerable amount of property in Fort Smith and enjoyed a lifestyle of relative comfort and prosperity. Young Alphonso ... began musical training at an early age with Professor W.O. Wiley of Van Buren, showing much talent."

After graduating from Lincoln High School, Trent went off to Shorter College in Little Rock and began working with the Synco Six, soon to become the Alphonso Trent Orchestra, Gramlich says. "The first professional engagement was in Eureka Springs in 1923."

Trent's band was what was known during the era as a "territory band," playing venues in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas, Gramlich explains. Its big break was an 18-month gig at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, "a sophisticated dance band playing for fashionable audiences of the 'Jazz Age.'" It was during an engagement at the Plantation Club in Cleveland that a fire destroyed the orchestra's instruments and its music library. Defeated, Trent returned to Fort Smith and took over his father's businesses, including Trent's Fountainette, a soda shop across from Lincoln High.

He died in 1959, at age 57. But Trent has been brought back to life by Rinne in a short film titled "Alphonso's Gold," created with filmmaker John McIntosh. It is based on a play written by Rinne and has garnered interest from PBS.

"I think Alphonso Trent was significant in a number of ways," Rinne says. "He was a son of Fort Smith who became a significant figure in jazz. Bands like his were cultural bridges moving us toward integration. That was one of his greatest contributions -- making that bridge between white and black culture at that time."

NAN What's Up on 02/24/2017

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