My guest today is superstar jazz clarinettist, Giacomo Smith.

Born in Italy, Giacomo grew up in upstate New York and initially wanted to learn saxophone, but was persuaded to start with clarinet, and went on to study clarinet classically in Boston University and McGill in Montreal. However, the lure of jazz was always there, inspired by both his mothers affinity for Dave Brubeck, and a roommate who loaned him a cd of Hubert Rostaing playing with Django Reinhardt.

This sparked an interest in the early days of jazz, and its unique soundworld, and later let to him founding a band called Kansas Smittys, playing music inspired by that era.

Famed for his elegant playing and effortless vituosity, he frequently performs worldwide and is in high demand as a soloist, collaborator, and record producer, and in early 2025, when Giacomo was in Ireland, performing with Guy Barker and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, we sat down to talk, where I began by asking him when he started playing clarinet…

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