Richard Smith & Steve Trovato

Steve Trovato-
The debut album by this amazing picker  (who is also a USC guitar instructor and an acclaimed studio player) is a stylistically diverse work that shows Trovato's total command of everything from blues to high-octane country to Gypsy jazz.  Affectionately know as the "Great Chameleon".  Trovato backs up the title by demonstrating just how damm good he is at, just about everything.  Trovato tips his hat to Danny Gatton on "D.G. Boogie" and tears into the Jimmy Bryant lane on the country -jazz ripper, "Squawkin".  He plays soulfully on the bluesy numbers.  Knock, Knock, Knock"  and "Drowning in My Own Tears," and goes deep into Django zone on the classic "Dark Eyes"  Trovato's ability to play so sensitively one moment (as on "Some Where Over the Rainbow") and so furiously the next ("Root Beer Rag") is simply astonishing.  What can you say?  A new superpicker has arrived! - Art Thompson

Richard Smith

Richard Smith is a guitarist, composer, producer, arranger and professor. Born in Detroit, but Richard Smith growing up in Oregon, he was inspired for greatness after seeing Al Di Meloa play at a "Return To Forever" concert when he was 14. Dedicating his life to the guitar he started playing in clubs while still in high school. At an early adult age he moved to Los Angeles, where he entered the USC Master Of Music program. While there, his instructor Joe Diorio got him together with pianist Billy Mitchell, who turned him onto a new world of the new and changing jazz scene. Smith hung out and worked with Russ Freeman, Max Bennett, Sam Riney, Tony Guerrero, Brian Bromberg, Jeff Kashiwa, and others. Kenny G and Dan Siegel helped Smith make a “demo” which led to his first recording contract. The first CD was awarded a nomination for “Record of the Year” in Japan. Within a year he joined Richard Elliot’s band and spent a lot of time on the road with guys like Peter White, Rick Braun, Marc Antoine, Warren Hill, Kirk Whalum and others. He recorded six number one disc’s with Elliot.

Smith has gone on to become a Music Professor at The Thornton School at USC. He has started the Guitar Masters program which provides free lessons, classes, guitars and mentoring to “at-risk” kids in South Central Los Angeles through the Challengers Boys and Girls Clubs.

I first met Smith in 1988 when he came with Elliot to Kansas City for a concert. The band was suppose to warm up for Dave Mason at a hard core rock club. Mason was a no show, but the crowd just went mad over the bands performance to the point that they had to perform a second set. Since that show Smith & I have talked quite a few times and get Bar B Q every time he comes to KC. We hooked up a few days before the release of SOuLIDIFIED.

JC: It has been a long time since we have seen anything from you. Where have you been and what have you been doing?

RS: I have been doing so many interesting things. I have been to Europe three times and actually wrote my new album SOuLIDIFIED over there. I kind of got some relationships with schools over there so I go over there and do a master class and a concert and so forth and then just hang. I lived in Bolognia for awhile and a little town on the Adriatic called Pescara and Rome. I was in the Saint Garmain district of Paris for awhile. It was a sabbatical. I got a year off from school so I went over there and bumed around, wrote music and played guitar.

JC: It has been four years since you put out an album. Even though you were bumming around is there any reason why you waited so long to record an album?

RS: It has been a wacky time in the music business and I just didn’t really want to put my foot in it for a little while. I have been very busy at school. I’m on a Fullbright committee at USC. I’m on the honorary degree committee and I’m the chair of my program. It’s so fascinating over there and it just takes a lot of time. I’ve also been doing a lot of sessions and things like that. Pushing another record out wasn’t at the top of my priority list.

JC: You love to write. You wrote all the songs on the new CD except one. Of course you love to play, so would playing come ahead of writing or vice versa?

RS: That is such a great question. It is one that I have thought about because my students asked me that. I’m surrounded by some of the great composers of all time. I’m on the faculty with Vince Mendoza and Morton "Skip" Lauridsen and these phenomenon composers who really are that profile of a composer, who are absorbed by the glory of the proposition and so forth. They are a different animal completely. So I have to look at my writing as a vehicle of my own expression and for playing the guitar on top of. I look at the stuff I write as having a harmonic and rhythmic components, the grooves and the beats and the sounds that I can best express myself. I really work hard on it. When I was over in Europe I wasn’t just bumming around, I mean I was because I wasn’t employed, but I would go back to my Pencione or my hotel and write and say “OK, what can I come up with?” I tried to write something every single day and this is just a distillation of two years of work like that.

JC: Talk about your writing process. What exactly do you do?

RS: Because I know so many musicians over in Europe, the first thing I did was said to those guys “what have you been listening to?” Some of the CD’s that I got to listen to and recorded while I was over there was so interesting and out of the American kind of mainstream. Really interesting stuff. I would punk them for their CD’s for a day or two. I would be listening to it and I would be sitting there with my guitar kind of just playing along with it. Then I would grab some stuff off of it that appealed to me. Research not plagery. Then I would work with that for a little while. I had a beat box with me and so forth. There is a certain amount of sweat rather tha - Jeff Charney

The University of Southern California (USC) Studio/Jazz Guitar Department has one of the first programs in guitar performance approved by the National Association of Schools of Music, with a faculty of distinguished performers and music educators. USC states "...more than ever in this highly competitive field, success depends upon artistry, professionalism, flexibility, and versatility.
The chairman of this prestigious program, Richard Smith, and faculity member Steve Trovato, demonstrated those qualities in a performance at Bean Town in Sierra Madre. This was one of a few appearances there as they prepared for a concert tour of Europe. Believe me, there was no "academic rust" these players had to work out. They played with an easy sophistication, each with very individual interpretations and approaches. Flexibility and versitility were ever present, with techniques used on occasion during some tunes that I had not seen used before by jazz guitarists. Playing "Spain' fingerstyle, Smith used uncommon right hand actions, including forward continuous finger rolls and alternating straight-finger picking for fast single note runs, commonly used with flamenco guitar. Both Smith and Trovato went wherever the evolving tune took them, wich at times touched the blues, rock, and pop music. Besides Chairmanship of the USC Guitar Program, Smith's specialty there is contemporary guitar jazz.

Trovato has been nicknamed "The Great Chameleon" because of his remarkable ability to move between jazz, blues, country, and rock. On "Caravan," he featured unusual content, some of which was reminiscent of the fast note Les Paul multiple recordings of years ago, though amazingly were just the two guitars on stage. Following "Stella By Starlight," Smith described Trovato's rendition of it as double-time with a rock style backbeat.
Smith and Trovato practice what they preach at USC, showing their artistry, professionalism, flexibility, and versatility. They opened up tunes, new and old, to fresh ideas and personal interpretation, getting across what they desired to convey. They were appreciative of audience response, and showed warmth and humor in conversation.
-Harvey Barkan - USC/Studio Jazz Guitar Dept. Faculty Show Their Stuff