BOSMAN TWINS QUINTET

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Dwayne’s and Dwight’s passion for jazz started at an early age.  They grew up listening to the sounds of great jazz artists such as Earl “Fatha” Hines, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and their father Lloyd Smith, who was a well known businessman and a side man in Basie’s and Ellington’s orchestras. Paula V. Smith, the twins’ mother and the first African American Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division for the U.S. Department of Labor under the Regan Administration, was also an avid jazz lover. Influenced by famous musicians, like family friends, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker, by age 14 the twins were performing professionally as The Bosman Twins.  Over the years, The Bosman Twins have shared their love of music and the stage with entertainment legends Freddie Cole, Branford Marsalis, Fontella Bass, Roy Ayers, David Peaston and the late trumpeter, Lester Bowie.   Whether performing with their own band or accompanying other notable jazz professionals, their unique style and renditions of jazz, rhythm and blues, funk and gospel have earned them national and international acclaim.