Smith, Warren (Jr.)
Smith, Warren (Jr.)
Smith, Warren (Jr.) , jazz percussionist, vibra-phonist; b. Chicago, 111., May 4, 1934. He came from a musical family: his father (not Warren Doyle Smith) was a clarinetist who played with various jazz bands and taught in Chicago; his mother was a professional harpist and piano player. Smith studied at the Univ. of I11. (1957) and at the Manhattan School of Music (1958); since then, he has been active around N.Y. He taught in schools, colleges, and universities. He worked with Tony Will-iams’s Lifetime, Sam Rivers’s Harlem Ensemble, and as a studio musician. He led the Composer’s Workshop Ensemble, recording on the Musicians cooperative Strata-East in the early 1970s; other members included Howard Johnson, Herb Bushier, Jack Jeffers, and Brass Townsend. Smith played with Nat “King” Cole, Gil Evans, George Russell, Charles Mingus, and Elvin Jones, and was a founding member of Max Roach’s M’Boom percussion ensemble. He is associate professor at SUNY Purchase, N.Y.
Discography
Cricket Poem Song (1982).
—Lewis Porter