Joe Smith was born in 1971 in Galesburg, Illinois, a small town west of Chicago, but spent his formative years in New York City playing with and learning from many of the best musicians the scene had to offer. He attended the Cincinnati Conservatory and the Manhattan School of Music studying with Vernel Fornier, Jimmy Lovelace, John Riely and Jeff Williams. During the 90's, Joe lived in New York City where he was the leader of many groups featuring such musicians as Reid Anderson, Ethan Iverson, Chris Lightcap, Jason Lindner, John Stetch and Ben Waltzer.

After moving to Barcelona in 2000, he released two albums as a leader under Fresh Sound New Talent inprint featuring his own compositions, "Happy" (2002) and "Melodic Workshop" (2004) which features Bill McHenry, Gorka Benitez, Guillermo Klein, Chris Lightcap and Jorge Rossy. In 2008 he formed the Asociación Libre Orkesta, a free-form Big Band which performs improvised music inspired by his poetry and projected Images. Joe’s latest cross-medium project, "Build-i-n-g" is a duo featuring Liz Kosack on synthesizers and piano. Their album "Muladhara Rising" (2021) presents Joe’s composition that mix rubato, forward-moving melodies and improvisations over pulse without meter grooves.

Joe has also been a featured sideman on the recordings of John McNeil, Arthur Kell, Ryan Blotnick, Larry Porter, Johannes Haage and many others. He has toured extensively in Europe, the Americas, and Scandinavia.

In 2017 Joe published a book of short stories titled 'Nickels & Dimes and Other Stories' and is currently writing two new books, a novel and a non-fiction book that describes his teaching technique and tells relevant stories from his over 25 years of performing, learning and teaching music. He also teaches in two schools in Berlin and privately in-person and on-line in his studio.

www.joesmithmusic.com