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Wadada Leo Smith: Inspiration Incarnate
by Doug Collette
Wadada Leo Smith's The String Quartets Nos. 1-12 and The Emerald Duets are right in line with his well-established, iconoclastic means of creativity. Material composed and arranged with consummate care and attention to detail is also fodder for improvisation replete with a dignified abandon. And much like the trumpeter/composer/bandleader himself, Tum Records bestows a supreme reverence upon his efforts: as with the instrumental conversations and dialogues comprising the music within clam-shell boxes, the graphic design itself (right down to customized ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith: The Emerald Duets
by Karl Ackermann
The pioneering British photographer/author Val Wilmer said of Wadada Leo Smith, “he no longer relates to the restrictions of scales and chords. To him, music is about two things only: sound and rhythm." Her assessment, from the essential book As Serious As Your Life (Allison & Busby Ltd, 1977), was published in 1977. But in the survey of creative music history, her title could have been a sole perspective on Smith. After being a regular contributor to John ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith: The Emerald Duets
by Dan McClenaghan
Wadada Leo Smith's music is often celestial, but the man himself is of this Earth—of America, in particular, the progeny of people brought to the Western Hemisphere involuntarily. People who have historically been treated as less than human, for the “sin" of having dark skin. This goes on. The true sin, the flames of racism, are stoked by a former and possibly future (God help us all) president—a cruel, sociopathic, immoral, dishonest racist. Wadada Leo Smith is America. ...
Continue ReadingNew Wadada Leo Smith And More
by Bob Osborne
On this week's show two massive new releases from Wadada Leo Smith, a seven CD box set of String Quartets, and a five CD box set of duets with drummers. In addition, a variety of new releases and dip into the archive for some early music from William Parker.Playlist Show Intro 00:00 Juanma Trujillo “Araya" from Collage (ears&eyes) 00:50 Peter Kogan “Pow, Pow, Pow—Yeah!" from Just Before Midnight (Koganote) 05:45 Todd Herbert “This Ones For Albert" from May ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith: String Quartets Nos. 1-12
by Karl Ackermann
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 ...
Continue ReadingWadada Leo Smith, William Parker & Aakash Mittal
by Maurice Hogue
Two of the most important creators of original music are featured in this episode—trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and his Great Lakes Quartet with the entire “Diamond Symphony" from The Chicago Symphonies, the second of two releases by Tum Records, and bassist William Parker with a piece from Painters Winter and one from Blue Limelight, one of the ten discs in his mind-boggling box set, . Saxophonist Aakash Mittal was influenced by the sounds of life during his sojourn in Kolkata, ...
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