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Michael Wimberly/Warren Smith Dec. 14, 3 p.m. Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church BROOKLYN NY Two solo performance by two visionary, transcendent musicians. MICHAEL WIMBERLY is a composer, percussionist, educator, and music producer based in Harlem, New York. Having recorded and toured internationally with innovative artists such as, Charles Gayle, Steve Coleman, William Parker, Cooper-Moore, David Murray, and many others. He has earned his place in the pantheon of cutting-edge, avant-garde jazz drummers. As a djembe soloist Wimberly has been featured with Europe’s Rundfunk, Tonkuntsler, Leipzig, and the International Regions Symphony Orchestra performing “African Oratorio” by composer Daniel Schnyder. As a composer, Wimberly’s symphonic work, “Kora Saba, ” has been performed by the Yakima Chamber Orchestra in Yakima, Washington, and the Sage City Symphony in Bennington, Vermont. His compositions also appear in dance companies Urban Bush Women, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Philadanco, Forces of Nature, Ailey II, Complexions, Ballet Noir, Alpha Omega, BalEthinic, Purelements, and The National Song and Dance Company of Mozambique. WARREN SMITH is a drummer, composer, timpanist, vibraphonist, community-maker, and educator who moved to New York from Chicago in the 1958 and who has worked with an unparalleled group of 20th and 21st century artistic personalities including Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Aretha Franklin, Gil Evans, Count Basie, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, Dionne Warwick, Carmen McRae, Quincy Jones, Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt, J. J. Johnson, and Jimmy Smith, to name just a few. Outside of jazz and Motown, Smith also played with composer Harry Partch, on Broadway in several productions including the original West Side Story, he played country music on the Jimmy Dean television show for three years, and he was Janis Joplin's music director in 1969. As a leader of the Strata East musicians cooperative and Studio WIS from the late 60s through the 80s--two key gathering spaces for the empowerment of African-American artists--Smith created forums for many others and became increasingly identified with the avant-garde. He was a founding member of Max Roach's historic percussion ensemble, M'Boom, and a member of Tony Williams' pioneering rock/jazz fusion group, Lifetime. Smith worked with Sam Rivers, Makanda Ken McIntyre, and musicians associated with the AACM and BAG collectives such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, Anthony Braxton, Wadada Leo Smith, David S. Ware, and Henry Threadgill. In addition he taught as SUNY Old Westbury since 1971, retiring only recently, and is a vital presence in the New York creative music community Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church (3931 Kings Hwy., Brooklyn) |
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