Home » Search Center » Results: Wadada Leo Smith
Results for "Wadada Leo Smith"
Jason Kao Hwang & Burning Bridge: Blood
by John Sharpe
As the follow-up to his Burning Bridge octet's eponymous debut (Innova, 2012), violinist Jason Kao Hwang has created another ambitious and wide-ranging work. As befits the title Blood, it constitutes a personal meditation on weighty subject matter, precipitated by a narrowly-avoided car accident which caused Hwang to consider the wartime experiences of his mother in China. ...
March Birthdays Including Nat Cole & Lennie Tristano Centennials
by Marc Cohn
We've got a nice slug of celebrants to honor in addition to our 'centennialins.' Our best wishes go out to Bill Frisell (playing here with Andrew Cyrille and Wadada Leo Smith), Joe Locke, Charles Lloyd, and Roy Haynes (backing Sarah Vaughan). A very special shout out to Jessica Williams! Enjoy the show! Playlist Joe ...
Michael Gregory Jackson Clarity Quartet: WHENUFINDITUWILLKNOW
by Troy Dostert
A guitarist with a prodigious recorded legacy and an omnivorous stylistic range, Michael Gregory Jackson's return to his avant-jazz roots during the past couple of decades has been a welcome, if under-recognized, development. While he cut his teeth in the '70s loft scene in the company of luminaries such as Wadada Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, Julius ...
Wadada Leo Smith: Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs
by John Sharpe
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's prolonged late career flowering shows no sign of abating with the creation of yet another epic work, following on the heels of his monumental Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012), Great Lakes Suite (TUM, 2014) and America's National Parks (Cuneiform, 2016). For his inspiration he takes the story of Rosa Parks, one of ...
Infinite Spirit Music: Live Without Fear
by Chris May
Britain's Jazzman Records has form when it comes to spiritual jazz. Its series Spiritual Jazz: Modal, Esoteric and Deep Jazz, now one release away from its tenth volume, has made accessible again some of the most worthwhile but near-lost African American music of the 1970s. The label also supports modern day British musicians. Stand out home-grown ...
Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn: The Transitory Poems
by Dan McClenaghan
The seed that started The Transitory Poems, the two piano set from Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn, was planted in 2002, when the two pianists played in saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell's band, Note Factory, contributing to Song for My Sister (Pi Recordings, 2002). At that time Taborn and Iyer fell into the “exciting young lions" category, and ...
Peter Evans / Sam Pluta: Two Live Sets
by Mark Corroto
The most extraordinary music ever presented has elicited the same time-honored “what the f@#k was that?" response. From Elvis (both Presley and Costello) to Grandmaster Flash, Igor Stravinsky, and Charlie Parker, the “shock of the new'" (to borrow a phrase from art critic Robert Hughes) adjusts listeners' criteria for judging a composition or performance, and often ...
Bobo Stenson Trio: War Orphans
by Dan McClenaghan
Manfred Eicher started ECM Records in 1969. Fifty years later, in 2019, with over 1500 releases to its name, the label continues to offer up compelling and unclassifiable music. And since the catalog is deep, and early-in-the-effort recordings have become harder to find, ECM periodically re-releases some of these gems, tagging them Touchstones. Early ...
Wadada Leo Smith: Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs
by Doug Hall
Acclaimed trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and educator Wadada Leo Smith has released an oratorio of seven songs inspired by the iconic civil rights leader Rosa Parks. In his own words, Rosa Parks: Pure Love. An Oratorio of Seven Songs is “concerned with ideas of freedom, liberty and justice, a meditation centered around the civil rights movement." Looking ...
