The Ed Smith Group

Name: The Ed Smith Group
Start: 2025-08-14T19:00:00-07:00
End: 2025-08-14T22:00:00-07:00
Location: The Grape

Schedule

Thu Aug 14 2025 at 07:00 pm to 10:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

The Grape | Ventura, CA

$15 cover at the door
Ed Smith- drums
Karl Hunter- saxophone
Ken Wild- bass
George Friedenthal- keys

Ed Smith is an in-demand drummer, composer, arranger, and studio musician in the greater Los Angeles area with extensive experience in music production.
Ed performs, records, and composes music for numerous albums and TV shows, as well as many films, commercials, musicals, and promos.
His production is extensive, having produced over 50 albums. Of particular note is his album, Tis The Season, Smooth Jazz Christmas (Lifescapes Music), that made it to #1 on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Charts.
His composition, “Tasajara, “ was featured on Pete Escovedo’s Grammy-Nominated CD, Mr. E (Concord Jazz Records).
Ed also received an Emmy Award for his arrangements and music production for ESPN’s NCAA Sports Promos featuring Robert Goulet.
His original compositions can be heard on TV shows like Queen Of The South, The Boys, The Good Place, Atypical, Madam Secretary, Big Bang Theory, Animal Planet, Dexter, Burn Notice, Access Hollywood, Cold Case, Young and the Restless, Everybody Hates Chris, Modern Family, Criminal Minds, Las Vegas, Bosch, This Is Us, Suits, Medical Detectives, Blue Bloods, Cheer (Theme Song), Longmire, and many others.
Recently, Ed had his songs placed in the feature films Ride Along 2 and Pitch Perfect 3.
In addition to his production and composition credits, he is a busy studio drummer and percussionist whose work can be heard on over 200 albums, including those of Michael McDonald, Dionne Warwick, Gerald Albright, Steve Tyrell, Ralph Carmichael (four Big Band albums and three albums with the London Symphony Orchestra recorded at the famed Abbey Road Studio), Grant Geissman, Keiko Matsui, Rick Braun, and Rita Coolidge, among others.
Ed has had the privilege to perform with some of the world’s great Jazz artists, including Joe Henderson, Jon Abercrombie, Toots Theilman, Ray Charles, and Richie Cole, to name a few.
Most recently Ed completed arranging and orchestrating 24 songs for the new musical production of Bread ’N’ Gravy, the life and music of famed blues singer Ethel Waters, premiering February 2024.