E. Doctor Smith and Seth Elgart's "K2"

by Lisa Star, 2008-09-26

Edgetone Artists, E. “Doc” Smith and Seth Elgart have been playing and composing music together for sometime. "K2" is their latest collaboration and it has quickly become a staple playlist in my office and in my car’s CD player. I love the title of this CD. While listening, it is easy to imagine soaring on the thermals above craggy peaks with breathtaking heights and plunging depths. The synth lines occasionally lend an edgy quality, providing an ethereal potency that is to be found in the extremes of such a peak as K2. Their influence from the 80’s Tangerine Dream, Peter Gabriel as well as others of the ambient genre is evident and while the ambient tracks soar – there is a pleasant groove with the percussive flavorings of the Zendrum ZX samples and bass elements that sets K2 apart. Edo Castro’s bass lines pulse, weave and enchant melding with the other instrumentation.. The bottom end serving to elevate the winding, stirring melodies of flute & sax by Neil Mezebish as well as Elgart’s synth work. Castro’s Ebow treatment on several tracks is haunting. Of Castro's contribution, Smith said, "One of the most prolific and talented musicians I have ever had the privilege to work with... A true star."

Elgart grew up listening to WNEW-FM in New York City. The Beatles, Hendrix, the Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, the Who, the Rolling Stones. Then one day, his sister's college DJ boyfriend took them to the WNEW Christmas concert at what was then called Philharmonic Hall. That was December 1972, when he was 12 years old, and it was his first concert. The group was Genesis. Peter Gabriel wearing giant papier mache masks, Steve Hackett with his incredible guitar tones, and Tony Banks blasting the hall with Arp synthesizers and his thundering Hammond organ. For Elgart, those sounds were a mind-blowing revelation. After that came Rick Wakeman and Yes, and on that fine day when he was holding the record covers for both Fragile and The Six Wives of Henry VIII and realized that the keyboard player on both was the same person, Elgart's course was set. Then, still on WNEW, there was Allison Steele, the nightbird. Throughout his teenage years, Elgart would keep the radio on late at night at low volumes so he wouldn't get caught, all so he could be introduced to Edgar Winter's Frankenstein, Synergy, and finally, to Tangerine Dream. In the late 1980s, with money he was awarded from a car accident he was involved in when he was 10, Elgart bought his first synthesizer: a Minimoog Model D (which he still has).

That was just about the time that Elgart was introduced to drummer E. Doctor Smith, and alongside guitarist Steve Britt and bassist Jeff Solant, formed the prog-rock group "Everest". The two have been making music ever since. From that first jam session in the now famous 8th Avenue music building in New York City, to Washington, DC recordings for theaters, to recording sessions during rare DC blizzards, to playing and recording in the woods in upstate New York, to gigs and modern digital recording in San Francisco, Elgart and "Doc" have been playing all sorts of music for quite some time.

Smith began his musical journey as a teenager playing percussion in the District of Columbia Youth Orchestra in 1975. Inspired by the Miles Davis fusion bands of the mid-70s, he continued his studies with Paul Sears, drummer of the Muffins. His first group, Oranus Rey, featured the now famous guitarist Paul Bollenback and bassist Ed Howard. In 1980 Smith moved to New York where he met fellow Music Building tenants Madonna and her co-writer, Stephen Bray.

With Bray, Smith performed with Madonna's earliest group, the Breakfast Club and The Same, which was produced by Brian Eno and featured keyboardist Carter Burwell, guitarist Chip Johannsen, singer Clodagh Simmonds and bassist Stanley Adler. Following Bray and Madonna to Los Angeles, Smith assisted on many of Madonna's biggest albums as well as many of Bray's other projects, including Nick Kamen, Gladys Knight, The Breakfast Club, Brian Ferry, and Steel Pulse.

In 1995, as a member of the folk-jazz trio Between The Lines, Smith designed and built the Drummstick, a percussion controller consisting rather humbly of a 2 x 6 piece of wood with 16 finger-pads. Borne of a desire to walk on stage, plug in and play like a guitarist, while accessing his beloved and virtually infinite world of digital sounds, Smith’s Drummstick developed a life of its own. In 2000 Smith debuted his first CD of original music, "The Drummstick", with his band of the same name, which featured core members Jack Wright on guitar, Neil Mezebish on horns, and Celia DuBose on bass. That year he also performed using the Drummstick with guitar legends including Bon Lozago of Gong, Tom Principato, Bill Kirchen, Paul Bollenback, as well as bansurist John Wubbenhorst, tabla master Sandip Burman, and the famed Howard Levy. This was followed by "Drummstick 2" and his work with SF poet "Robert Anbian and the UFQ: The Unidentified Flying Quartet", both on the Edgetone label.

Of their latest release K2, the online music reviewer "One True Dead Angel" wrote, "Smith and Elgart, who have been collaborating together for nearly thirty years, have come together now (with the help of a few friends) to create a tribute of sorts to the early giants of ambient and new age. Employing laptops, Moog keyboards, synths, Ebow, and more traditional jazz instruments, the two men lead a series of session players through ten airy tracks that are part jazz, part ambient, and part new age, light-sounding but compelling instrumental pieces that have as much in common with elevator music as with experimental free jazz. That might not sound so complimentary, but the fact is that the music here is highly listenable, and not boring at all; the sound is not threatening or abrasive, but the rhythms are pleasantly hypnotic and the melodies pleasing to the ear without being unduly aggressive.

This may be new age music, but if so, it's new age for a more sophisticated listener, comparable in sound and intent to the early work of Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream. The only real difference is the use of considerably more modern technology, although how much difference that really makes in the final sound is a matter for debate (other than making the process simpler and easier, especially in comparison to the trial and struggle Tangerine Dream used to endure on a daily basis while trying to tame the then-new equipment at their disposal, which often behaved unpredictably and had a tendency to drift out of tune). This just serves as an excellent reminder that new age instrumentals are not always the equivalent of sonic wallpaper..."

Featured on this latest CD are: E. Doctor Smith on his new Zendrum, samples & iBook, Seth Elgart: Synthesizers, samples & MacBook, Edo Castro: 7 String “Stinger” Bee and Conklin Basses, Neil Mezebish: Flute, Soprano and MIDI Saxophones, and Neng Canzon: Bass on “Son of Mobado”. The tracks are a pleasing length and often I’m left wanting more of the various grooves – I will be listening to this CD for a very long time to come.


Lisa Star, is the head of Passion Star Music, and has formed her own record label and publishing companies. In addition, she is an emerging singer/songwriter.