Sonelius Smith | |
---|---|
Birth name | S. L. Smith |
Also known as | S. Smith, Sonelius Laurel Smith |
Born | Hillhouse, Mississippi | December 17, 1942
Genres | Jazz, Spiritual Jazz, Soul Jazz |
Occupation(s) | Pianist and Composer |
Instrument | Piano |
Years active | 1970-present |
Labels | Soul Note, Strata-East Records |
Member of | The Sonelius Smith Trio |
Formerly of | The New Directions, Jazzmobile, The Piano Choir, The David Murray Quartet, Flight to Sanity, the Lo-Fly Sextet |
Sonelius Smith (born December 17, 1942) is known both for his innovative contributions to jazz as composer and pianist and for his collaborations with some of the late twentieth century's greatest jazz musicians.
As a composer, Smith has created work performed by pianists Ahmad Jamal and Stanley Cowell and saxophonists David Murray and Robin Kenyatta. [1] [2] As a jazz pianist, Smith has performed with Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton and Stanley Cowell, and been a member of several noteworthy musical groups, including the Piano Choir, which the Washington Post described in 2000 as a multi-genre "Masters of the Piano ... [s]et up on nine Steinway pianos in a semicircle with the keys facing the audience [showcasing] the best of three centuries of piano history." [3] In 1977, the New York Times described Smith's performance with Clifford Thornton's jazz quintet as "forcefully inventive." [4] In 1991, AllMusic described the David Murray Big Band album, which Smith recorded as a member of the David Murray Quartet, as "generally brilliant." [2] [5]
Between 1970 and 2001, Smith performed, played or composed the music for some forty-five albums, including one of his own: The World of the Children (1977), originally released by the storied Strata-East Records, but remastered by Pure Pleasure Records Ltd. in 2021. [6] In a review of the remastered edition, Robbie Gerson of the UK's Audiophile Audition praised its "aspirational soul, free jazz and lyrical expression" and "Smith (the composer) [for] shin[ing] on acoustic piano with a complicated, transcendental improvisation ... incorporat[ing] both Latin and African patterns," which he described as "captivating," noting that "[a]nother Smith composition (“Conversation Piece”) captures the opposing earthy and graceful abstraction." [7]
In 2005, Smith's collaboration with Shamek Farrah on "Julius" was included in Mastercuts Breaks, a compilation released by Mastercuts that also featured Earth, Wind & Fire, James Brown and Nina Simone. [8] [9]
Born in Hillhouse, Mississippi, Smith learned to play piano by ear. [10] In 1948, after his family relocated to Memphis, he began receiving classical training, which later won him a music scholarship to the historically Black university now known as the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, but then known as the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College. [1] In college, Smith played in a small ensemble, and studied piano and theory with Josephus Robinson and John Stubblefield. In 1969, he graduated with a major in music education. [1] [10] After graduation, Smith began touring Europe with The New Directions, which featured Stubblefield and musicians James Leary, Larry Ross and Benjamin Jones. [10]
Smith relocated to New York City at the end of 1969, and began working with Rashid Ali's Jazzmobile jazz quartet. [10] That led to his arrangements and compositions for singer, songwriter and music producer Bob Crewe's Saturday Music company. [10] A year-long tour with Rahsaan Roland Kirk followed, as did collaborations with Kirk on the studio album Blacknuss, the live album Rahsaan Rahsaan and Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata, a second studio album. [8] [10]
In 1973, Smith joined jazz pianist Stanley Cowell's ensemble. [10] In the mid-1970s, he worked with Shamek Farrah and Flight to Sanity. In 1974, he served as musical director for Nancy Fales' Ark, directed by Ralph Lee at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City's East Village. [11] Toward the end of the 1970s, he played with J.R. Mitchell, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, Warren Smith, and Wilber Morris.
In the 1980s, Smith worked with Andrew Cyrille and joined David Murray's quartet. Throughout a long musical career, Smith also collaborated with Kenny Dorham, Roy Brooks, Charles Mingus, Roland Kirk, Robin Kenyatta, Rashied Ali, Warren Smith, Frank Foster, Harold Vick, Donald Byrd, Elvin Jones, Archie Shepp, Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey and Lionel Hampton. [1] [2] As founder of the eponymous Sonelius Smith Trio, Smith collaborates with bass player Adam Kahan and baritone saxophonist Claire Daly. [2]
Between 1973 and 1986, Smith worked as an educator for the New Muse Community Museum. In the 1990s, he also began working for The Harlem School of the Arts, in addition to teaching at the Third Street Music School Settlement.
Year | Credits | Album | Musical Artists |
---|---|---|---|
1970 | celesta, piano | Rahsaan Rahsaan [live] | Rahsaan Roland Kirk & The Vibration Society |
1971 | piano | Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata | Rahsaan Roland Kirk |
1972 | piano | Blacknuss | Rahsaan Roland Kirk |
1973 | performer | Handscapes [live] | The Piano Choir |
1974 | piano | First Impressions | Shamek Farrah |
1974 | piano | Stompin' at the Savoy | Robin Kenyatta |
1975 | piano, electric piano, featured, composer | Handscapes 2 | The Piano Choir |
1977 | piano | The World of the Children | Shamek Farrah & Sonelius Smith |
1977 | piano | Wildflowers 2: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions | Various |
1980 | vocals, piano | La Dee La La | Shamek Farrah and Folks |
1980 | piano, composer | Live | J.R. Mitchell |
1982 | composer | Prime Time | Hugh Lawson |
1983 | piano | The Navigator | Andrew Cyrille |
1991 | piano | David Murray Big Band | David Murray Quartet |
1993 | piano | Body and Soul | David Murray Quartet |
1994 | piano | Strata-East | Various |
1994 | composer | Summit Conference | Reggie Workman |
1995 | piano, arranger | South of the Border | David Murray |
1997 | piano | Dog Years in the Fourth Ring [compilation] | Rahsaan Roland Kirk |
1997 | piano | Strata-2-East | Various |
1998 | piano | Comraderie | Zusaan Kali Fasteau |
2000 | piano | Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions - Complete | Various |
2001 | composer | No One in Particular | Rashied Ali Quintet |
2020 | piano | Let's Make Ends Meet | Tee Holman Sextet |
Rahsaan Roland Kirk, known earlier in his career simply as Roland Kirk, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute, and many other instruments. He was renowned for his onstage vitality, during which virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the ability to play several instruments simultaneously.
Malcolm Earl "Mal" Waldron was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He started playing professionally in New York in 1950, after graduating from college. In the following dozen years or so Waldron led his own bands and played for those led by Charles Mingus, Jackie McLean, John Coltrane, and Eric Dolphy, among others. During Waldron's period as house pianist for Prestige Records in the late 1950s, he appeared on dozens of albums and composed for many of them, including writing his most famous song, "Soul Eyes", for Coltrane. Waldron was often an accompanist for vocalists, and was Billie Holiday's regular accompanist from April 1957 until her death in July 1959.
Don Gabriel Pullen was an American jazz pianist and organist. Pullen developed a strikingly individual style throughout his career. He composed pieces ranging from blues to bebop and modern jazz. The great variety of his body of work makes it difficult to pigeonhole his musical style.
Strata-East Records is an American record company and label specialising in jazz founded in 1971 by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell with the release of their first recording Music Inc. The label released over 50 albums in the 1970s. Many of the label's releases are now hailed as prime examples of 1970s post-bop, spiritual jazz, and afro-jazz.
Oh Yeah is a studio album by the American jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus, released in April 1962 by Atlantic Records. It was recorded in 1961, and features Mingus singing on three of the cuts and playing piano throughout.
Stanley Cowell was an American jazz pianist and co-founder of the Strata-East Records label.
Blacknuss is an album by Rahsaan Roland Kirk. It was recorded in 1971 and released by Atlantic Records.
Don Kiethly Butterfield was an American jazz and classical tuba player.
Joe Chambers is an American jazz drummer, pianist, vibraphonist and composer. He attended the Philadelphia Conservatory for one year. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chambers gigged with many high-profile artists such as Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, and Chick Corea. During this period, his compositions were featured on some of the albums on which he appeared, such as those with Freddie Hubbard and Bobby Hutcherson. He has released fifteen albums as a bandleader and been a member of several incarnations of Max Roach's M'Boom percussion ensemble.
Body and Soul is an album by David Murray released on the Italian Black Saint label in 1993. It features performances by Murray, Sonelius Smith, Wilber Morris, Rashied Ali and Taana Running.
James Roland "J. R." Mitchell was an American jazz drummer and educator who sought to promote awareness of the African American music experience. In the early 1980s, jazz journalist and Washington Post music critic W. Royal Stokes wrote, "J. R. Mitchell is the renaissance man of jazz."
"Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" is a jazz instrumental composed by Charles Mingus, originally recorded by his sextet in 1959 and released on his album Mingus Ah Um. It was subsequently released on his 1963 album, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus as "Theme for Lester Young" and 1977's Three or Four Shades of Blues. Composed in E-flat minor, Mingus wrote it as an elegy for saxophonist Lester Young, who had died two months prior to the recording session and who was known for wearing unusually broad-brimmed pork pie hats. These were "busted down" by Young himself, from hats that might better be described as Homburgs, but which he only purchased in "Negro districts". This was since, according to an interview with Young in the November 1949 edition of Our World, "You can't get the right type in a 'gray' neighborhood".
The Return of the 5000 Lb. Man is an album by the jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
Left & Right is an album by the jazz multi-instrumentalist Roland Kirk, released on the Atlantic label in 1969. It contains performances by Kirk with Jim Buffington, Julius Watkins, Frank Wess, Rahn Burton, Vernon Martin and Roy Haynes, with Warren Smith, Richard Williams, Dick Griffin, Benny Powell, Pepper Adams, Alice Coltrane, Jimmy Hopps, Daniel Jones and Gerald "Sonny" Brown featuring on an extended track with orchestration by Gil Fuller.
Rahsaan Rahsaan is a live album by jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk featuring performances recorded at the Village Vanguard in May 1970. It was originally released on the Atlantic label in 1970 and features performances by Kirk with Rahn Burton, Vernon Martin, James Madison and Joe Habad Texidor with Dick Griffin, Howard Johnson, Leroy Jenkins, Sonelius Smith and Alvern Bunn added on an extended track. The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek states "Rahsaan was the king of the riff—he could use it until it bit you—and once it did he was off and running someplace else, down on the hard-swinging outer spaceways of his mind and heart".
Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata is an album by jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk featuring performances by Kirk with accompaniment by drummer Maurice McKinley and percussionist Joseph "Habao" Texidor, and with Sonelius Smith on piano on three tracks.
Dog Years in the Fourth Ring is a compilation album by jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk featuring 2 CDs of previously unreleased live performances and Kirk's solo album Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata on the third disc. It was released on the 32 Jazz label in 1997.
This is a timeline documenting events of Jazz in the year 1969.
Mingus at Carnegie Hall is a live album by the jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus, recorded at Carnegie Hall in January 1974 by Mingus with Jon Faddis, Charles McPherson, John Handy, George Adams, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Hamiet Bluiett, Don Pullen, and Dannie Richmond. The original release did not include the first part of the concert, featuring Mingus’s working sextet without Handy, Kirk, and McPherson. An expanded “Deluxe Edition” including the entire concert, was issued in 2021.
In the late 1960s, Latin jazz, combining rhythms from African and Latin American countries, often played on instruments such as conga, timbale, güiro, and claves, with jazz and classical harmonies played on typical jazz instruments broke through. There are two main varieties: Afro-Cuban jazz was played in the US right after the bebop period, while Brazilian jazz became more popular in the 1960s. Afro-Cuban jazz began as a movement in the mid-1950s as bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Taylor started Afro-Cuban bands influenced by such Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians as Xavier Cugat, Tito Puente, and Arturo Sandoval. Brazilian jazz such as bossa nova is derived from samba, with influences from jazz and other 20th-century classical and popular music styles. Bossa is generally moderately paced, with melodies sung in Portuguese or English. The style was pioneered by Brazilians João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim. The related term jazz-samba describes an adaptation of bossa nova compositions to the jazz idiom by American performers such as Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd.