Smith, Harrison

Harrison Smith was a jazz concert promoter and booking agent. Jelly Roll Morton hired Smith as a New York partner in a booking agency whose main office was to be in Los Angeles. Accordingly, they shared an office in New York for a brief period during the late 1920s or early 1930s. The partnership was apparently shortlived but was the basis upon which Smith’s claims of copyright ownership of 20-30 Morton’s compositions were founded. Smith later contested Morton’s will over royalties compositions that Smith claimed were either partly or wholly his own; he also issued claims of copyright infringement to numerous music publishers and recording companies. The County of Los Angeles denied Smith’s claims on the Morton estate but RCA Victor agreed to pay him royalties on various Morton tunes.

From the guide to the Papers regarding copyright ownership of Jelly Roll Morton's songs, 1949-1969, (Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, Harvard College Library)