He said: “Tom was a jazzer.
“He had a great improvisation technique and knew his jazz – he had a feel for it.”
As a child, Smith’s daughter, Deryn Munro, remembered people such as Dave Allen and Shirley Bassey visiting the family home on Mount Pleasant, Liverpool city centre, where the basement served as an impromptu club and practice room and the ground floor housed his wife, Sheila’s, hairdressing salon.
She said: “My father was such a character and so well liked, and people in Liverpool still tell me such stories about him.”
Glasgow-born Smith left Liverpool and moved to the United States in 1975, settling in Palm Beach, Florida, where he remarried. Ms Munro says she is hoping to compile a collection of stories and memories of her father, with a view to publishing a volume.
She is currently accepting contributions from anyone who remembers her father at derynmunro@hotmail.co.uk
