Jazz Articles about Mona Tian

About Mona Tian

Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: String Quartets Nos. 1-12

Read "String Quartets Nos. 1-12" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
July 29, 2022

Wadada Leo Smith's seven CD boxset String Quartets Nos. 1-12 summons two words, epic and ineffable. The 5½ hours of music chronicle three of his four periods writing for string quartets from 1965 until 2019. The remaining work, “String Quartets Nos. 13, 14, and 15" inspired by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution, although written, have yet to be recorded. Smith's vision is skillfully executed by the RedKoral Quartet—Shalini Vijayan (violin), Mona Tian (violin), Andrew McIntosh ...

Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: String Quartets Nos. 1-12

Read "String Quartets Nos. 1-12" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
June 28, 2022

In the thirty-page booklet that accompanies Wadada Leo Smith's String Quartets Nos. 1-12, the trumpeter & composer devotes a few paragraphs to the subject of inspiration. He traces an irregular line whose points include Claude Debussy, Dmitri Shostakovich, Muddy Waters, Ornette Coleman, and others. But those diverse artists, who came and went before Smith, have no markers in this seven-disc box set; they illuminate the composer's creative process and lay the barest groundwork for his new concepts. The ...