The Checkout - Live at Berklee Continues with Walter Smith III

The Checkout – Live at Berklee, which brings critically acclaimed Berklee alumni back to their alma mater for concerts in the Red Room at Cafe 939, continues on Thursday, March 7 with rising saxophonist Walter Smith III, a 2003 Berklee graduate. Smith will perform with pianist Taylor Eigsti, bassist Harish Raghavan, drummer Clarence Penn, and Berklee alumnus guitarist Matt Stevens.

Presented by NPR Music and WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM, the shows will be webcast live worldwide in high definition video over NPRmusic.org and on the radio in New York over WBGO-FM as a special edition of The Checkout, the acclaimed multimedia show featuring what’s new on New York’s jazz scene. They will also be archived, and available for on-demand listening, at NPRmusic.org, and Checkoutjazz.org.

Concerts and broadcasts will begin at 8:00 p.m. ET. Tickets are $10 for the general public and $5 with a Berklee ID, and are available at cafe939.com or by calling 617 747-2261. The Red Room at Cafe 939 is located at 939 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts. The venue is wheelchair accessible. 

Saxophonist Walter Smith III has performed all over the world in numerous national and international festivals and at prestigious venues in the U.S. such as Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. He has shared the stage and appeared on recordings with many jazz notables including Terence Blanchard, Roy Haynes, Christian McBride, Eric Reed, Mulgrew Miller, Joe Lovano, Bob Hurst, Myron Walden, Walter Beasley, Lewis Nash, Terri Lyne Carrington, and many more. To date, he has appeared on more than 75 recordings released worldwide.

Currently signed to Concord Records, Smith leads a quintet and is working on a new recording project. He has also been a member of several recording and touring groups including the Terence Blanchard Quintet, Eric Harland’s Voyager Band, Ambrose Akinmusire’s Quintet, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s group, the Sean Jones Sextet, Jason Moran’s Big Bandwagon, and the Christian McBride Situation band. For reviews and information, visit waltersmith3.com.

WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM serves the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area with mainstream jazz, blues, and award-winning news and public affairs programming. Non-commercial WBGO is supported by nearly 17,000 annual members and has over 400,000 weekly broadcast listeners. WBGO also streams its broadcast signal to audiences worldwide at wbgo.org. WBGO was named the “Jazz Station of the Year” by the Gavin Report and is also the recipient of the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive Award for Achievement in Non-Commercial Radio. WBGO is a publicly supported, cultural institution that champions jazz, an American art form, and presents news to a worldwide audience through radio, other technologies, and events.

NPR Music celebrates great music in every genre and is an industry leader in music discovery. The free, multimedia website (npr.org/music) offers 300 new features monthly and an extensive archive, in collaboration with NPR’s newsmagazines, 12 public radio member stations, and the passionate NPR community. NPR Music creates and distributes inventive music coverage across multiple platforms—web, radio, podcast, mobile, social media, and live events—with first listens of new albums, live performances, concerts at the Tiny Desk, interviews, reviews, and blogs.

Liz Lupton is a publicist in Berklee's Office of Media Relations. You may reach her at llupton@berklee.edu.