Home » Jazz Musicians » Will Smith
Will Smith
Pianist Enoch Smith Jr. Returns To Recording After An 8-year Absence With "The Book Of Enoch Vol. 1," Set For Nov. 7 Release On Misfitme Music
Source:
Terri Hinte Publicity
Enoch Smith Jr. gives the gospel music repertoire a fresh infusion of blues and swing with the heartfelt, hard-driving The Book of Enoch Vol. 1, to be released November 7 on his own Misfitme Music. Played by his trio of bassist Kai Gibson and drummer David Hardy, thealbum—Smith’s sixth, and his first in eight years—obviously draws deeply on the gospel tradition but presents its seven tunes in the context of soulful, infectious straight-ahead jazz. In other words, it might not ...
read more
Frank Wildhorn Unveils 'Frank Wildhorn & Friends: Live In Las Vegas With Jane Monheit And Clint Holmes' A Dynamic Return To His Jazz Roots Recorded Live At The Smith Center Inside Cabaret Jazz
Source:
Jill Siegel
Frank & Friends: Live in Las Vegas with Jane Monheit and Clint Holmes, a captivating live album recorded at the Smith Center inside Cabaret Jazz is now available on all streaming platforms featuring 17 tracks lovingly selected by the renowned multi-Grammy, Tony, and Emmy Award-nominated composer and producer Frank Wildhorn for Jane Monheit and Clint Holmes. This album, produced by Frank Wildhorn and Myron Martin, features songs from Wildhorn musicals “Jekyll & Hyde”, “The Scarlet Pimpernel”, “ Wonderland,”” Camille Claudel” ...
read more
Perfection: Paul Smith - Under My Skin (1957)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Last weekend, I posted a video clip that included pianist Paul Smith accompanying Frank Sinatra. Smith belonged to a small group of superb West Coast jazz studio pianists that included Lou Levy, Jimmy Rowles and Pete Jolly. In the late 1950s, Smith recorded four albums for Capitol that became known as the Liquid Sound sessions. One of them was Delicate Jazz, recorded in November 1957. For this week's Perfection clip, I've chosen I've Got You Under My Skin. I'm not ...
read more
Perfection: Keely Smith - The Song Is You (1958)
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Few pop singers in the 1950s could swing like Keely Smith. Anita O'Day was certainly one of them, but Smith was the finer vocalist and surely knew more songs and required fewer takes in the studio. In some respects, Smith was the female Frank Sinatra, able to move ahead of the beat, behind it and go a different way on song lines and pull them off. So many of her albums are excellent with a different feeling on each one. ...
read more
Eliot King Smith Teams Up With Audrey Martells (Chic) To Bring To Life The Story Of Josephine Baker
Source:
Glass Onyon PR - Keith James
In the 1920s, faced with the grinding poverty and segregation of East St. Louis, Josephine Baker took her dancing and musical talents first to New York, and then, at 19, arrived in Paris to perform with the Folies Bergère. Entranced by her reception and treatment by French society, she rose to stardom almost immediately at the Folies. She starred in multiple films, and scored a big hit song that summed up her reverence for the freedom she experienced as a ...
read more
Perfection: Jimmy Smith - 'Too Old to Dream'
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
In April 1960, organist Jimmy Smith joined forces with tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and recorded Back at the Chicken Shack for Blue Note. One of the tracks was “When I Grow Too Old to Dream," by Oscar Hammerstein II, Sigmund Romberg. The song was introduced in The Night Is Young (1935) and was given a gospel-soul shove on the 1963 album by Smith, Turrentine and Donald Bailey on drums. (Guitarist Kenny Burrell appears on two tracks but not this one.) ...
read more
Doc: The Jazz Loft According to W. Eugene Smith
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
From 1957 to 1965, photographer W Eugene Smith lived in loft space at 821 Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Smith had already established himself as a pioneer of the journalistic photo essay—a collection of images that told a story in magazines, most notably Life. Before the rise of the documentary in the early 1960s with the advent of the portable shoulder camera, Smith's photo montages served the same purpose in still images. In 1957, Smith left his wife and four children ...
read more
Paul Smith: Swinging Elegance
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
In the late 1940s and 1950s, few pianists moved as effortlessly and deftly between jazz and pop as pianist Paul Smith. Instrumental pop, as a genre, came into its own after 1948, with the advent of the 10-inch LP. Pop back then still had plenty of swing but was really jazz-light—easy-going music that had a bit of a kick but didn't venture too far off a familiar song's melody. Pop as a lucrative record-company division emerged then when record buyers ...
read more
Legendary Trumpeter/Composer Wadada Leo Smith To Premiere His Monumental New Work, America Transformed, At Brooklyn College From Sept. 8–11
Source:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
At 81 years of age, Wadada Leo Smith is deep in the midst of the most creative and prolific period of an already formidable career. On the heels of a yearlong 80th birthday celebration that featured a number of dazzling performances along with several large-scale releases, the visionary composer and trumpeter will premiere his most monumental work to date. From September 8 to 11 at Brooklyn College’s Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts, Smith will present the ...
read more
Sun Ra Arkestra Veteran Drummer Wayne Smith, Jr. Releases 'Be Still,' A Powerful Venture In Emotion And Tranquility
Source:
Outside in Music
Wayne Smith Jr. is a drummer, composer, and educator with a multifaceted palette of soundscapes and genres at his disposal. Having toured across three continents, performed throughout the New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. music scenes, and currently working as a staple member of the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra, Smith’s accolades rightly herald his abilities as a master craftsman of the drum set. Described as an “inventive drummer who displays an in-depth musical consciousness,” and who is “willing to embrace ...
read more
