Ches Smith

Ches Smith is an American drummer, percussionist and composer, raised in Sacramento and now based in New York. He came up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he studied with Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, William Winant and Alvin Curran, and he works across free jazz, avant rock and composed music. He is also a long-time student of Haitian Vodou drumming, which he has played in religious and folkloric settings in New York and Haiti. Smith moved to the Bay Area in 1995 after studying philosophy at the University of Oregon, and toured with Mr. Bungle.