Clint Smith profile picture

Clint Smith

About Me

Clint Smith has been playing guitar for 20 years, ever since he picked up an old 3/4-size acoustic in his bedroom and started plucking the open strings (needless to say, the fact that the instrument had frets and the strings had to be pressed into them came a bit later to him)Starting out exploring blues, heavy metal, and other sorts of music that he thought people would get into, and getting involved in the typical "fast guitar lick" duels with various other guitarists, Clint was eventually pushed towards jazz by his teacher, Eric Waters, a professor at George Washington University. His early 20s were spent attempting to master the theory behind the music and understand how all of the disparate rhythmic and harmonic elements of jazz came together to make a very abstract, yet also very vibrant and beautiful music.It was at this time that he recorded his first record, "Obliteration of the Self", with Sarth Calhoun on bass and Erik Feder on drums (Feder continues to play with him today in various duo and larger band contexts). "Obliteration" mixed fusion, pop forms, and loud extended jams with some sensitive jazz that would prove to be the foundation for his second recording, "Resolve", with Jordan Young on drums and Marco Panascia on bass.Smith is entering the studio for 2 different recording sessions in the months of June and July; a record with Newt, led by the jazz-meets-Coldplay-meets Nick Drake, moody stylings of Matthew Coleman on piano (with Chris Beal on drums and Claude Bauschinger on bass). They're up at my space at www.myspace.com/newtband. In the middle of July, Smith, Matt LaVon, Erik Feder, and John Romey are entering the studio to record Smith's original compositions. Some of the music from this record will be posted on the My Space site when it is finished, and it will be sold through CD Baby (thus available at the web sites of Tower, Amazon, etc).Those interested in booking the band or contacting Clint can do so here or at [email protected].

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 06/07/2005
Band Members: Some of the musicians who play regularly as part of Clint Smith's bands include: Erik Feder (drums), Evan Lytton (drums), John Romey (bass; www.myspace.com/johnromey), Matthew Coleman (www.myspace.com/ambienaos), Claude Bauschinger (bass, see my friends for his site I can't recall the extension!), Bill Buchen (tabla) and Seth Mehl (erhu)...www.nonalignedmovement.com.
Influences: John Coltrane, Rabih Abou-Khalil, Andrew Hill, John McLaughlin, various fusion, jazz, and ambient artists
Sounds Like: John McLaughlin, Santana, classical Arabic music, John Abercrombie
Record Label: INDEPENDENT

My Blog

Venues, venues/Steve Lacy/NY Living

As a musician on what would have to be called the lower rungs of the jazz world, you tend to amass venues that one might want to avoid. In general, you would play them anyway (much as a rock musician ...
Posted by on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:54:00 GMT

Some musings on creativity and the music business...thoughts?

I got motivated to write when I thought about the different exchanges on Craig's List I've seen. I'm not talking about all the posts "seeking guitarist", "jazz band for show in the Hamptons", etc. My ...
Posted by on Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:17:00 GMT

Dreaming of something else: "Clean"...

On one of those rare beautiful days during the week when one doesn't have to work and the weather was fair I took a walk through the city; through SoHo, up Spring Street, noting all of the different j...
Posted by on Thu, 01 Jun 2006 16:48:00 GMT

Space, the use of emptiness...

Spent the weekend plugging in multi-FX units, facing amps to each other, getting feedback from all the delay and distortion, tilting the guitar this way and that way to see what I would come up with. ...
Posted by on Tue, 07 Feb 2006 15:45:00 GMT

November thoughts...

I've just finished moving a couple of classical guitar performances onto the site, courtesy of an all-night (well, 2 1/2 hours that started later than they should have!) tinkering with a beautiful Tay...
Posted by on Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:34:00 GMT

Recording a CD down at the Mark Bar, and some other musical endeavors

Cheers everyone Things, as always, have been pretty busy with the music. Ran through a set of my tunes for a recording I'm doing this Thursday down at the Mark Bar with a pair of excellent musicia...
Posted by on Tue, 04 Oct 2005 17:28:00 GMT