Wadada Leo Smith
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December 18, 1941
Male
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Wadada Leo Smith Bio
Wadada Leo Smith is an American Jazz musician. He was born on the 18th December 1941 as Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith in Mississippi. His musical career began early, as he played in his high school band. At age thirteen, he got involved with the Delta Blues music tradition. He continued his musical education through the U.S. Military band program at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri in 1963 and afterward in the Sherwood School of Music, and finally at Wesleyan University. In his research, he has experimented with the music of many different cultures: African, Japanese, Indonesian, European and American. Smith has been awarded multiple times, he is a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and in 2016, he received the Doris Duke Artist Award, while earning an honorary PhD from CalArts, where he was also consecrated as Faculty Emeritus. Also, in 2016, he received the Artist of the Year Award by the Jazz Times’ Critics Poll.
