Rudy Smith is a Trinidadian steelpan player from Port of Spain. Noted for his
performances with many highly regarded jazz artist, Rudy has attracted attention as
one of the brightest steelpan soloist in jazz. Mr. Smith has recorded and performed
with artist such as George Cables, Tommy Flanagan, Horace Parlan, Bernie Senesky,
Andrew Cyrille. Frank Morgan, Ed Thigpen, David Williams, Dom Um Ramao, Red
Mitchell, Mats Winding, Belgium TV Big Band, Don Thompson and many others...
Rudy Smith perfected his unique style by studying jazz luminaries: Milt Jackson,
Bobby Hutcherson, Oscar Peterson and John Coltrane. Mr. Smith has toured
internationally and has performed at many of the major clubs and jazz festivals in
the USA, Canada, Europe and the Caribbean.
Selected Reviews:
The Metro Word, Toronto
The hollow tones of a Steelpan might seem a major disadvantage for the warm notebending playing required in jazz soloing, but with a delicate style of improvisation
and careful attention to each song´s structure, Smith has defied convention and
emerged as a sought-after player.
Svend Asmussen
I have been a secret fan of Rudy´s for many years - from the moment i first heard
him, I´ve been raving about his incredible musicianship, his impeccacble taste and
soulful phrasing. He and Toots Thielemans, who both make you forget the
unsurmountable technical defficulties of their respective instruments, belong in my
personal gallery of heroes with Louis, Duke, Bird, Stuff, Stan, Dizzy and a few that
you probably never heard of.
Ernie Wilkins
I just think it´s marvelous album and Rudy is one of a kind. I have never heard a
steel-drum player like him before in my life! I am very impressed with his
compositions.
Mark Miller, The Globe and Mail, Toronto
It would be all too easy to make a fuss about the apparent novelty of the steel drum
as a jazz instrument. The sound of the pan, after all, is the sound of calypso, not of
bebop- or blues-note, at least, until Rudy Smith, a trinidadian musician traveling out
of Copenhagen, strikes the first notes of a hip tune like John Coltrane´s "Some Other
Blues". Damned if it isn´t perfectly natural.
Krister Malm, Ph. D., musicologist, Sweden
Double alto pan player Rudy Smith has started a new phase in the story of pan. And
not only in the story of the pan but in the story of Afro-American music. Rudy Smith
has married the most important Afro-Carribian invention in the field of musical
instruments, the steelpan, to the most important Afro-American musical tradition,
the jazz. And more than that. He has developed a solo style of the steelpan which
has not been heard before. His technique is dazzling. But it is not a question of
empty virtuosity. Rudy Smith´s playing is marked by the same astonishing
inventiveness that has created the steelpan.
Thorbjoern Sjoegren, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark
It may perhaps be rather natural (and easy) to consider the use of steel-drums in jazz
as something of curiosity, but the way in which Rudy Smith handles his two 50 cmwide metal things it is not difficult for him to convince us of thier legitimate use in
jazz.
Selected Discography:
Still Around
Rudy Smith Quartet
Ole Matthiessen
Niels Praestholm
Gilbert Matthews
1984
A Pan-Jazz Concert
Carlton Alexander
Douglas Redon
Sean Thomas
1998
Stretching Out
Ole Mathiessen
Niels Praestholm
Ole Streenberg
1985
Pan-Jazz improvisations
Annise Hadeed
Felix Roach & Friends
1998
Jazz-n-Steel
Niels Praestholm
Ole Streenberg
1989
Danmarks Radio
Time to Move On
Ole Matthiessen
Henrik Dhyrbye
Ole Streenberg
1999
Live in Toronto
Kieran Overs
Norman Marshall Villeneuve
1993