In the music of Stuart Saunders Smith (b. 1948), jazz, the avant-garde, and sound-text poetry coalesce. Through the years he has concentrated on certain kinds of composition—open form, radio music, trans-media systems, and sound-text poetry. Although Smith considers himself a jazz composer and drummer, his work has been absorbed into a wider range of contemporary musical efforts, both in the United States and Europe.
This study of Smith contains six critical analyses, an interview, and bibliographic information containing a list of compositions, a discography, Smith's publications, and research currently available on his music. As Milton Babbitt notes, All of his music is to be reckoned with… and, as such, this volume will be of interest to all students and scholars of contemporary composition.