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Rion Smith has now been drumming for just about 20 years.

He started in 5th grade playing snare drum, but by 6th grade was taking lessons on

drum set. Jr. High found him playing kit in the Jazz Ensemble in which he was a featured

soloist at school assemblies. By High School, Rion was playing in a small local

Arizona drum corps, as well as keeping up with his studies as a

kit drummer, playing and recording a CD with a regional Jazz

Ensemble, "Young Sounds".

Rion earned a degree in Percussion Performance at the

University of Arizona. While there he was the drummer in the

"A" Jazz Ensemble for 5 years, played and recorded a CD with

the Steel Band, recorded frequently in the studio with the "A"

Jazz Combo, taught the Marching Band Drumline for 3 years, and played

in numerous other ensembles, including Wind Ensemble, Percussion

Ensemble, and Symphonic Band. In the summer of 94, Rion played

Snare Drum for the Blue Knights Drum & Bugle Corps.

Rion has been teaching other drummers since he was

in High School, and began giving private drum lessons while he was in

college.

Rion began gigging professionally when he was 18, playing with various

bands around the Tucson area. Immediately after graduating, Rion

came to Orlando for the first time to play with the All American College

Band in the Magic Kingdom in the summer of '96. After a summer of

working for the Mouse, Rion worked as a freelance musician in Tucson,

and kept busy playing with bands such as Sounds of Brazil, a Brazilian

Samba Fusion group, Ache Pa Ti, a 10 member timba salsa group (timba

refers to a particular style of salsa where the drumset player uses

timbales as a part of his set up), The Paul Elia Quintet, playing the

music of Frank Sinatra, as well as various other jazz groups, and rock

bands. In winter 1997, Rion was shipped off to Japan to work in the

trash can drumming trio called the Jammitors in Tokyo Disneyland, where

he worked for two separate 6-month winter contracts. After his second

contract he was offered a full time position at EPCOT as a member of

the original Jammitors, where he worked for 4 years. During that time

Rion began playing around Orlando, most notably with the South Bumby

All Stars, a highly experimental and improvisational group where he

could be seen playing double drum sets opposite Anthony Cole on many

occasions. Other groups included Umoja, world beat fusion, Fool Proof

Plan, a heavy metal band, the Chris Charles Trio, straight ahead jazz,

and various pick up work at theme parks, and venues around town.

Rion's current projects are the Fairbanks 5, Florganism, and Shak Nasti.

Shak Nasti CD just released “From The Belly”.

You can purchase any of Rions CD’s @ Drums2go.

Check out the band websites for cool media files @