Wadada

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…

Originally proposed to ECM Records in 1979, the collaboration of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and drummer Jack DeJohnette has finally found new life in America. Recorded last year in Bill Laswell's New Jersey studio (but without his heavy-handed production aesthetic), this unadorned acoustic session documents two of the world's most versatile and virtuosic improvisers working through a set of six new compositions written by Smith.

Occupy the World features the legendary composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith together with TUMO, a new improvising orchestra that is assembled specifically for each project, in its first appearance. The 22-piece orchestra performs five extended compositions by Smith, including "Occupy The World For Life, Liberty and Justice", his most extensive recorded composition to date, that was originally inspired by the Occupy movement. The four other compositions included on this double-CD were also recorded here for the first time.

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

Anchored in the idea that, despite all obstacles, the human experience casts a net of possibilities, Defiant Life – Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith second duo recording for ECM – proves a profound meditation on the human condition and both the suffering and resilience it entails. An ethereal iridescence glistens between Leo Smith’s unmistakable trumpet wail and Vijay’s textural key strokes on piano and Fender Rhodes, conjuring multi-dimensional spaces of thoughtful musical conversation. “We work from our individual languages and materials,” notes Vijay in his extensive liner note, as well as “our methods of aural attunement, and what I would call a shared aesthetic of necessity”.

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.