Jazz Articles about Wadada Leo Smith

Wadada Leo Smith: Spiritual Dimensions

by Jakob Baekgaard
January 18, 2010

For a long time, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has pushed the boundaries of experimental jazz. The records he made during the seventies for his own Kabell label have become a richly treasured legacy of the avant-garde. Spiritual Dimensions, a two-CD set dedicated to his working bands, The Golden Quintet and Wadada Leo Smith's Organic, finds him exploring two different pathways: meditative free music and electrifying experimental funk. What the two approaches share is a deeply spiritual bent, and the fact ...

Leo Smith: Spiritual Dimensions

by AAJ Italy Staff
December 14, 2009

Bene ha fatto Leo Smith a intitolare questo poderoso compendio del suo lavoro più recente Spiritual Dimensions, perché pochi improvvisatori sulla scena possono oggi vantare la forza e la profondità spirituali che lo caratterizzano. Spiritual Dimensions esemplifica, in due diverse sedute di registrazione, le apparentemente diverse strade che oggi percorre il trombettista: da un lato il Golden Quintet, squisitamente acustico, dall'altro il gruppo Organic (alla sua prima incisione), che esplora e rilegge, con risultati di straordinario impatto, la scura opera ...

Wadada Leo Smith: Spiritual Dimensions

by Dan McClenaghan
November 30, 2009

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith blows in two different directions on this two-CD set, Spiritual Dimensions. The recording is comprised of two live sets, one by Wadada Leo Smith's ongoing Golden Quintet, the second by his new Wadada Leo Smith's Organic. The Golden Quartet, recently expanded to quintet, changes players with time. The line-up that recorded The Year of the Elephant (Pi Recordings, 2002) included drummer Jack DeJohnette, pianist Anthony Davis and bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut. Two of the ...

Wadada Leo Smith

by Marc Medwin
May 24, 2009

“Since 2007, I see America changing, becoming not a divided multi-cultural society, but a pluralistic cultural society where everybody has a chance. Creative music announced the change in the '60s, but the music had been democratic since New Orleans, with its collective improvisation., where the collective had value and every individual had equal value. This is a unique moment in this country's history, so now I call the music I make American music." It is a momentary shock ...

Wadada Leo Smith / Jack DeJohnette: America

by Troy Collins
May 10, 2009

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.

Legendary veterans whose seminal innovations can be traced to the late '60s, Smith ...

Wadada Leo Smith: Tabligh

by AAJ Italy Staff
October 20, 2008

Parlare dei numerosi punti di contatto fra la musica di questo ottimo album del trombettista Wadada Leo Smith e i capolavori elettrici di Miles Davis dei primi anni settanta potrebbe sembrare riduttivo per l’arte sopraffina di Smith, ma non è affatto così. Questo gruppo denominato 'Golden Quartet' ha infatti la competenza tecnica e la personalità per percorrere una strada propria che sa fare uso discreto delle suggestioni per poi avanzare con coerenza e passione lungo scenari che sono assolutamente originali ...

Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet: Tabligh

by Nic Jones
August 25, 2008

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has always carved out his own territory in the music and Tabligh is one of the best realizations of his work on record. Working with this trumpet/keyboards/bass/drums quartet format for some time now, this set captures in true splendor how constructively that time has been spent.

The band is alert to every inflection of Smith's music and the leader responds largely with lines that seem less fractious than the work he's perhaps noted for. Thus his ...