Cladys (Jabbo) Smith; Jazz Trumpeter, Competed With Louis Armstrong

Cladys (Jabbo) Smith, 82, jazz trumpeter considered a rival of Louis Armstrong’s in the 1920s and 1930s. A native of Pembroke, Ga., Smith joined Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Band at the age of 17. He recorded with Fats Waller and later for the Brunswick label with a Chicago group, directly competing with Armstrong. He retired from music in the 1950s to work in a car rental agency. But in 1979, Smith joined the cast of the musical “One Mo’ Time” in New York, and then toured with bands throughout the 1980s. On Wednesday in New York of complications from pneumonia.