Home » Jazz Articles » Wadada Leo Smith
Jazz Articles about Wadada Leo Smith
Wadada Leo Smith / Louis Moholo-Moholo: Ancestors
by John Sharpe
There is a natural fit between drums and trumpet. It stretches back all the way into prehistory, with the shamanistic combination of animal horns and percussive devices, persisting up until the early twentieth century in military drum and bugle corps who passed signals and directed troop movement. That synergy continues to bear artistic fruit to the present day in jazz, nowhere more so than in the work of distinguished trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. He already numbers four such meetings in ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith: London, England, August 27, 2012
by John Sharpe
Wadada Leo SmithCafé OtoLondonAugust 27, 2012As if searching for the perfect setting, for the second night of his two-day residency at north London's Café Oto, legendary AACM trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith was pitched against two contrasting ensembles drawn from the capital's reservoir of improvising talent. First up was a brass trio, supplemented by the electronics and melodica of Spring Heel Jack impresario, erstwhile guitarist John Coxon, while the second was a percussion threesome. Although Smith's ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith: More Than Moments in Time
by Nic Jones
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has been pursuing his muse for decades now; that pursuit has yielded music as singular as anything out there, as his now abundant discography testifies. The release of Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012) earlier this year amounts to something monumental, however, and not merely because the music pans out across four discs. Smith's music has never had about it the air of culmination, and accordingly no release of his amounts to anything other than a facet ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith: Ten Freedom Summers
by Eyal Hareuveni
Wadada Leo SmithTen Freedom SummersCuneiform Records2012Music--protest songs or extended compositions--have long been to be an integral part of human rights struggles. Suffice to mention such canonical musical statements as drummer Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960) and Lift Every Voice and Sing (Atlantic, 1971), saxophonist John Coltrane's “Alabama" from Live at Birdland (Impulse!, 1963) or bassist Charles Mingus' “Meditations on Integration (or for a Pair of Wire-Cutters)" and “Fables ...
Continue ReadingTen Freedom Summers
by John Sharpe
Wadada Leo Smith Ten Freedom Summers Cuneiform Records 2012 Without doubt Ten Freedom Summers is the crowning achievement of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's distinguished career to date. Years in the making, the complete sequence of 19 songs, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, was recorded live at Los Angeles' Red Cat club in 2011, producing over four hours of superbly nuanced, invigorating music. Southwest Chamber Music, under the direction of Jeff von ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith: Ten Freedom Summers
by Mark Redlefsen
Wadada Leo SmithTen Freedom SummersCuneiform Records2012Jazz music and the Civil Rights Movement in America have moved on parallel tracks from the 20th century up until the present. Freedom Suite (Riverside, 1958) by saxophonist Sonny Rollins, We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960) by drummer Max Roach and also Attica Blues (Implulse, 1972) by saxophonist Archie Shepp are all strong statements that still retain their vital relevance and serve as period ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith: Sounding America’s Freedom
by Franz A. Matzner
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has been at the forefront of musical invention for 40 years and has recently entered a late-career renaissance. In May, 2012, this seminal musician released his greatest effort to date, Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform), a 30-year in-the-making testament to the power of civil rights and the importance of artistic engagement in social activism. As the United States faces an election, at the heart of which lies race relations, Smith's message of liberty is intended to drive ...
Continue Reading
