Steve Smith - The Maestro

[tater1977]

Steve Smith - The Maestro

Written by BOB Baruffaldi . Posted in Musicians , Paper2Media

http://www.drumsetmag.com/steve-smith-the-maestro/

The protagonist of the cover of May Drumset n. 5th of September 2012, Steve Smith , known and revered as one of the greatest experts in the history and evolution of our tool. Smith is also an exceptional performer, able to unite in his drumming influences and styles diversisimi each other, as well as a leader of their projects, one of the oldest of which is the band Vital Information, now in its thirtieth year of business ...

Thirty years is a very long time for a group: how did you manage to keep alive the band and how it has evolved over the years?

The band is still alive because I have kept alive, as a vehicle of personal expression. In general it was easy to find great musicians to whom was pleased to be part of and stay there for a long time. The core of the band originated while I was in high school in the early seventies and I met Tim Landers (bass) and Dave Wilczewski (sax): at that time we played together in a big band in Boston. Since 1977 I started to go on tour with Jean-Luc Ponty, while Tim was with Al DiMeola and Dave played with Freddie Hubbard. We met in Boston once a year for a reunion gig with different guitarists Dean Brown, Daryl Stuermer or Barry Finnerty

. After statonei Journey for a few years, I was able to sign a contract with Columbia for the publication of my first solo album and that was the time when we recorded Vital Information with Tim, Dave and guitarists Dean Brown and Mike Stern . We recorded the first album in January 1983 and we published in the summer. In September and October of 1983, between the spaces of the Journey tour, toured the United States with the Dutch guitarist Eef Albers instead of Stern (at that time is on tour with Miles Davis and Jaco Pastorius). At the end of that tour we recorded Orion (1984), our second album.

Since then I have kept alive the band always following my inspiration and trying new ideas. On Global Beat (1987) joined the group Tom Coster and I have integrated hand percussion and steel drum in our sound. Next album, Fiafiaga (1988), we began to experiment with the programming of the computer and playing with the tracks quantized. At that time, Tim Landers was very busy with his solo career and then Kai Eckhardt played bass for a while 'and joined us also Frank Gambale. Even a very young Larry Grenadier on bass has played with us for about a year with a great saxophonist as Larry Schneider: You can listen to the jazz version of the band's powerhouse Vitalive! (1990), recently remastered and reissued.

bassist Jeff Andrews I met while I was on tour with Steps Ahead in the early nineties, and he joined us Easier Done Than Said to realize (1992) and Ray Of Hope (1996 ). In the record of 1992 we used some keyboards quantized, but then I realized that that approach was not right for us, and then we have reinvented again as a band-oriented groove from Where We Come From (1997). Baron Browne joined us in 1998, and this has solidified our approach funk. We recorded Live Around The World (2000), Show 'Em Where You Live (2001) and Live From Mars (2002).

By registering Come On In (2004) I started to introduce Indian rhythms in our music. Vitalization of (2007) joined us Vinny Valentino (guitar) and I introduced the konnakol. There is also another version of the band called Vital Information NYC Edition, which includes Vinny, Baron, Mark Soskin on keyboards and Andy Fusco on sax. These two musicians are from my other band Buddy's Buddies and Jazz Legacy. With them in the group can play both classical music and the music of Vital Legacy and Buddies. Last November we recorded a live album and a new album in the studio of Vital Information NYC Edition, which will be published in 2013.


Steve Smith: Drum Legacy

http://youtu.be/hAKjrbEoEnw

[Gideon]

Never was a big fan of Smith's 'til TBF, but then according to BTM: Director's Cut, Smith confesses he was still in his "apprenticeship" stage during most of his time with Journey. And boy is there a tremendous difference between their previous efforts and TBF; just stellar, stellar, stellar percussion from start to finish.

[hoagiepete]

If so, he was one hell of an apprentice. Hope he wasn't referring to an Apprentice wage scale.

I didn't have to wait for TBF to appreciate his talents. Awesome from the start, recordings and live.