The NY Post covered our upcoming Juneteenth Jazz Jubilee featuring Music on the Inside:
This Saturday, more than two years after leaving prison, Smith will perform a rendition of the spiritual song “Deep River,” on stage with his mentors at MOTI’s Juneteenth Jazz Jubilee Benefit Concert at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on the Upper West Side.
Smith will be joined by four other formerly incarcerated individuals and 12 professional musicians, including multi-Grammy award-winning composer and pianist Arturo O’Farrill, two-time Grammy nominated trumpeter Alphonso Horne and renowned tap dance artist DeWitt Fleming Jr.; along with saxophonist Don Braden and his Earth Wind and Wonder quartet.
Smith has come a long way from his self-taught music theory in prison.
“I would tell him [the piano player in prison] to tap the key and remember what it sounds like. I’d say that sounds like the key A flat. Sometimes I would hit the key right on the nose,” he said of guessing keys to sounds, imitating the hand movements on his paper keyboard.
