Leo Smith

Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith - A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (2016) {ECM 2486}
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© 2016 ECM Records | ECM 2486
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Piano / Trumpet

In his liner notes to A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke, pianist/electronicist Vijay Iyer writes that while working in trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet/Quintet between 2005 and 2010, the pair often became "a unit within a unit." Evidenced by Tabligh in 2008 and Golden Quintet's half of the 2009 double-disc Spiritual Dimensions, this album (marking the trumpeter's first appearance on ECM in more than two decades) underscores that assertion via distillation. It is one of essences. It reveals the intricacies of music-making according to principles of instinct as well as close listening. Iyer's opening "Passage" is a surprise. The pianist's gently investigatory chords and thematic harmonics offer the hallmarks of a chamber piece.

The Chicago Symphonies represents another magnificent four-disc collection of extended compositions by composer, musician, artist and educator Wadada Leo Smith leading his Great Lakes Quartet in a celebration of Chicago and the rich contributions of the Midwestern artistic, musical and political culture to the United States of America. The first three symphonies, “Gold,” “Diamond” and “Pearl” are performed by Smith with three other contemporary masters of creative music, saxophonist/flutist Henry Threadgill, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Jack DeJohnette. The fourth, “Sapphire Symphony – The Presidents and Their Vision for America,” features saxophonist Jonathon Haffner with Smith, Lindberg and DeJohnette.

This new version of Wadada Leo Smith's classic Reflectativity from 1972 – now a memorial for Duke Ellington – shows his compositional strengths as fully developed, even at that time. Yet, in this piece, he reworks his own notation to open up his lyrical side over his improvisational dimension. His unusual notation – which resembles Anthony Braxton's of the period and later – was actually a system being worked out over the range of multi-tonalities and improvisational possibilities within the erected framework. ~ AllMusic

Wadada Leo Smith's recorded long-form works in the first half of the 2010s have all been justifiably celebrated. From 2010's Ten Freedom Summers to 2013's Occupy the World and 2015's Great Lakes Suites, his albums have evocatively and provocatively engaged their subjects in a deft musical language that investigates as well as illustrates. The six thematically and musically linked compositions of America's National Parks were birthed by Smith's own research on the congressional passing of the Organic Act in 1916 that created the National Parks Service. Unlike filmmaker Ken Burns' documentary, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, Smith doesn't celebrate the majesty of nature here…