Viola Smith, who played a giant 12-piece drum kit and was billed as the “fastest girl drummer in the world” — and who wrote a widely read essay during World War II advocating for big bands to hire ...

In the 1930s, Viola Smith was billed as the “world's fastest girl drummer,” and she went on to see other female drummers follow her trailblazing path over the next nine decades. A native of Mount ...

Viola Smith, the trailblazing drummer once heralded as the “fastest girl drummer in the world,” has died, The Washington Post reports. She was 107 years old. According to The Post, Smith died October ...

Legendary jazz musician Viola Smith (1912–2020) gets a much-deserved spotlight in Robbins’s ringing tribute. Onomatopoeic lines describe Smith’s childhood exposure to drums as the youngest member of ...

Boundary-breaking swing drummer Viola Smith, who worked with legendary jazz entertainers Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb, has died at the age of 107. Smith reportedly passed away Wednesday in Costa ...

Any of these drummers could've been legends in the world of rock and metal, but instead they were legends in the world of jazz and big band. Watch them absolutely crush in the video below. Back in the ...

Viola Smith, the pioneering musician known as the “fastest girl drummer in the world,” has died. Per the New York Times, her nephew recently confirmed that she died in her Costa Mesa, California home ...

Viola Smith, a Costa Mesa resident and pioneering musician of the swing era who was billed in the 1930s as the “fastest girl drummer in the world,” has died. She was 107. Smith died Wednesday at her ...

In the 1930s, she was billed as the “world's fastest girl drummer,” and she went on to see other female drummers follow her trailblazing path over the next nine decades. Viola Smith, a native of Mount ...

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