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Pete Smith
Pete Smith is a New York City-based guitarist who performs in a wide range of musical settings. As a founding member of Santos4tet (aka Grupo los Santos), a vanguard Afro-Cuban and Brazilian-style quartet, he has played New York’s Town Hall, concerts throughout the U.S., Cuba & Austria and was a Fall 2024 JazzRoad performing arts grant recipient. He has performed at the Berlin Jazz Festival and Montreal Jazz Festival, as well as concerts in thirty countries throughout Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. He has worked with Norah Jones, trumpeter Donald Byrd, Cuban trombone master Juan Pablo Torres, Andrew Hill, Kat Edmonson, Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks, the Moonlighters, Madeline Peyroux, Natalie Merchant and Huun-Huur-Tu, and is a member of Michael Feinstein’s Carnegie Hall Big Band. In 2023 he traveled to Congo-Kinshasa as a member of the band Opius Bliss—as cultural ambassadors for the US Embassy—to perform for and teach, play and dialogue with local musicians in Kinshasa and Kisangani. 2023 also saw the release of Santos4tet's 4th album "Santos 4". Pete will be recording a new album with bassist Sean Smith (The Smith Duo) in 2025.
Gear
1977 Gibson Byrdland
1967 Fender Princeton
Tags
Randy Weinstein: HarmoniMonk
by Richard J Salvucci
A caution to Monkophiles of every variety: This is not your grandparents' Thelonious Monk, much less Charlie Rouse's or anyone else. Monk on a chromatic harmonica? Well, keep an open mind and try it. It may prove enjoyable, although this is not Toots Thielemans. Here is a recording for the adventurous listener, especially if hearing a harmonica-tuba combination on “Straight, No Chaser" with the tuba chugging along with some rhythmic offset is not enough to leave ...
Continue ReadingGrupo Los Santos: Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea
by Michael P. Gladstone
A spirited group of Latin jazz players called Grupos Los Santos offers its brand of music on Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea, which translates to What We Are What Will Be . The title of the group could also be loosely translated to mean that they are not playing a singular type of music but bring in many elements, tempo and cultural diversities.
When “Rumba in the Bronx" begins, it is with a percussive rumba ...
Continue ReadingGrupo Los Santos: Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea
by Ernest Barteldes
Grupo Los Santos is a New York-based group that successfully looks at Latin and Brazilian jazz from an American point of view. The result is a mixed sonic bag that allows influences from funk and East Coast jazz into the music without compromising the general sound and feel. At their CD release concert at New York's The Jazz Standard in January, 2008, they opened with “Boogie Down Broder," a tune by saxophonist Paul Carlon dedicated to the ...
Continue ReadingGrupo Los Santos: Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea
by David Miller
Grupo Los Santos is a unique band. Its music is Latin through and through, and yet the musicians come from varying backgrounds. Guitarist Pete Smith has played with Norah Jones, Donald Byrd and Andrew Hill; bassist Dave Ambrosio has recorded with Uzbek and Kyrgyz folk musicians; saxophonist Paul Carlon leads his own band, playing everything from straight-ahead jazz to funk; and drummer William “Beaver" Bausch rounds out the core quartet, and is probably the most experienced in Latin musics. What ...
Continue Reading"and Smith, the guitarist, snapping out parts as if he were in the James Brown band. There's rock in Smith's playing too, but it's not a default position; at times he sounds like Bill Frisell, or James Blood Ulmer, modern, thoughtful, different." - Peter Watrous
"The deepest moment was his (Michael Feinstein's) contemplative “Time in a Bottle,” a duet with the guitarist Pete Smith." - Stephen Holden, NYTimes
"Grupo Los Santos’ album Santos 4 has so much feeling so much soul! It is a voyage, a transforming experience! A juice made with a lot of talent!" - Cyro Baptista
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Music
Future Homage
From: Clave HeartBy Pete Smith
Entre Dongan Y Adren
From: Clave HeartBy Pete Smith
Pete Smith
Location: New York City
Instrument: Guitar
