Cliff Smalls

Clifton Arnold (3 March 1918 – 2008), better known as Cliff Smalls, was an American jazz trombonist, pianist, conductor and arranger who worked in the jazz, soul and rhythm & blues genres.

Early life Smalls was raised in Charleston, South Carolina. "so I laid in bed all of 1952, til March 1953".

Recovering, Smalls shifted his musical career to serve as music director/arranger for singers Eartha Kitt, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Clyde McPhatter, Roy Hamilton and Brook Benton. He recorded Bennie Green with Art Farmer in 1956 and was, for many years, a regular with Sy Oliver's nine-piece "Little Big-Band" including, from 1974 to 1984, a regular stint in New York's Rainbow Room.

In the 1970s Smalls returned to jazz-recording, including four solo tracks for The Complete Master Jazz Piano Series in 1970, with Sy Oliver in 1973, Texas Twister with Buddy Tate in 1975, Swing and Things in 1976 and 'Caravan' in France in 1978.

In 1980 Smalls was featured playing piano in The Cotton Club, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.