Now that was really fast…I’ve mailed Walter Smith III my interview questions yesterday night after I’ve written about his highly recommendable debut album Casually Introducing and just a few hours later I already had the answers.
So here’s your chance to learn more about Walter, his music, why he teamed up with a Spanish label for his debut and the inspiration behind the album cover.

Q: You’ve started playing the saxophone at the age of seven. How soon did you know that this is your instrument?

Walter Smith III: I actually started at 7 because my father actually had been a professional saxophone player in New Orleans, and he kind of pointed me in that direction. After a few years it just kind of seemed that once I started to listen to instrumental music that all of my favorite players happened to be saxophonists. That made me really decide to stick with it.

Q: How important were your stays at the Berklee College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music for your musical development?

Walter Smith III: While I was at Berklee, I went through a huge amount of musical growth. Coming to a town like boston, you are surrounded with a lot of guys (and girls) on every level in all genres from all around the world. I felt like I was exposed to lots of different styles of music as well as many different approaches that really helped to encourage and motivate me to practice and learn all that I could from them. I was also able to work with a great trumpet player Darren Barrett weekly, and he was really a mentor to me in terms of exposing me to lots of different possible approaches to improvising. Also Bill Pierce and George Garzone were huge influences on me during my time at berklee. My Manhattan School days were really benificial to me due to the location in New York. I got a chance to be in the scene and work a lot as well as get some wisdom from the great faculty that teaches there. I got a lot of help with my writing from Gary Dial, Phil Markowitz and Dave Liebman.

>>>continue