Home » Jazz Articles » Catching Up With » Wadada Leo Smith: Sounding America’s Freedom

2

Wadada Leo Smith: Sounding America’s Freedom

By

Sign in to view read count
When you look at the tradition that we call jazz in our society, it has always focused on the spiritual, social, and political nexuses.
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 action and inspire passion.

Not unlike the densely interwoven novels of great authors such as Mann, Dostoevsky, or Joyce, Ten Freedom Summers is so inter-textually rich and philosophically actualized that its briefest moments seem to distill the entirety. It has many access points and, as a whole, makes a statement of significant cultural import.

Smith explains, "When you look at the tradition that we call jazz in our society, it has always focused on the spiritual, social, and political nexuses." A 19-piece collection the goal of which is to create a psychological portrait of the civil rights movement's past, present, and future, Ten Freedom Summers reflects Smith's perspective on the integrated character of spiritual, musical, and political expression.

For Smith, the Biblical figure David has always been a central model. David, as he explains, was an artist who made music, as well as a prophet and a governor. Smith also points to the Sufi tradition and the role of the Sufi master as a spiritual guide and social leader who employs music to reach ecstatic, inspirational states.

"Even to get into yourself to make a powerful musical statement, you have to practice that same art of meditation that takes place in Sufism. That attunement, that centering that takes place sitting in the meditation seat as well as sitting on stage are the same. Both are ritualized moments and both of them have to achieve essentially the same thing to be successful: a transformation from your daily, fully aware and functional realities to a kind of submerged, subjective spiritual evolution in order to get to the core of what you want to play on your instrument or present in performance."

To Smith, however, this moment of ecstatic clarity goes beyond achieving a musical moment on stage. It permeates human existence and leads to the unifying principle of Ten Freedom Summers: freedom—a human experience that implicitly encompasses freedom of expression, political freedom, and spiritual freedom. In turn, each of these hinges on the rights of the individual. As Smith puts it, "Freedom and liberty and justice are embedded in our [Constitution], which states that men are born with these rights. If these rights are denied, then our society must suffer."

Smith, of course, is not the first to explore the fertile territory documenting the connection between the civil rights movement and jazz. Jazz has always stood at the crossroads of American race relations. Its early artists, who birthed the art form, faced the stark realities of systematized, pervasive racism, the everyday brutality of which stood in the way of their financial progress and suppressed their artistic freedoms.

By the 1930s and '40s, jazz had reached its apogee as America's popular music, pushing the question of the racial inequities its musicians faced out into the open. With greater frequency, its artists and spokespersons—from Duke Ellington, to Benny Goodman, to promoters like Norman Granz— began to confront race issues directly, fueling a more overt politicization. During the 1960s, jazz's artistic visionaries became intimately linked with the civil rights movement, reinforcing both the thematic and musical cross-pollinations happening across folk, rock, and jazz. At a deeper level, musicians like saxophonists John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Ornette Coleman began exploring the outer bounds of music's creative limits and gave voice to the ultimate goal of the struggle for civil and human rights: equal rights to freedom of expression as an individual.

Recent scholarship, as well as various contemporary musicians, have revisited these themes. Not many, however, can claim Smith's personal connection to the development of creative music, and few have the breadth of historical and personal experience that he brings to composing, playing, and teaching.

Born in 1941 in a segregated Mississippi, Smith has lived a solid piece of contemporary music's and civil rights' history and this experience provides the inspiration for his demanding magnum opus: "When I was growing up in Mississippi—in a segregated Mississippi—and experiencing the transition from that segregated moment I felt in my heart that I would someday write about that time zone. Because of the[ir] development in the United States, civil liberties have been increased throughout the world."

Composed as a collection of 19 tracks with titles such as "Dred Scott: 1857," "Freedom Summer: Voter Registration, Acts of Compassion and Empowerment, 1964," and "Martin Luther King, Jr.: Memphis, the Prophecy (listen here)," Ten Freedom Summers documents the psychological trajectory of the civil rights movement and its impact on the American psyche through a series of compositions for quartet, quintet, and chamber orchestra. When asked about the specificity of these titles and his ultimate goal, Smith makes clear that the titles were chosen deliberately to provoke.



"I made them to be complete poetic statements. I made them to be absolute cultural referents. I wish to provoke a further attitude and logic towards research when thinking about this piece. I would like that [listeners] find [for] themselves a rational conclusion of how our society—and, in the larger context, our world—should and can solve the problem of racism and sexism, because those are the two largest problems embedded from the very earliest times of recorded history right up until today."

Smith further explains, "We are talking about a...period of time in which people made big sacrifices, and that runs straight through all of the pieces. We are talking about times in which there were great victories, and that runs through all the pieces. The psychological thread that runs through all of them is celebrating—or, rather, ritualizing—and having a ceremonial relationship to, the tragic events, and then moving forward to those that were victories."

To understand Smith's treatment of the civil rights movement, it is necessary to recognize that Smith does not attempt to present programmatic music or literal depictions of the aspects and moments of the civil rights movement that he references. Smith has described his process as an effort to translate from the historical, to the psychological, to the musicological. In his words: "When I think about the civil rights movement or any other political issue in our society I look at the psychological impact of those issues and ideas. In my music that is what I am trying to translate: the psychological impact of it, or the psychological reality of it. Not the actual event itself, but the psychological impact that event has on society."

Smith also cautions that Ten Freedom Summers should not be seen as a single suite, but rather as a collection. "A suite generally speaking should have a consistent use of the same thematic material but disguised or expressed in a different kind of way. In my case, I have not used the same thematic material." Instead, Smith has crafted each piece as an individual referent to the character or event he examines, each complete in itself. Smith acknowledges, however, that there is overlapping musical material throughout the work. As an example, Smith points to where he employs a quote from the piece "Emmet Till" as a transition to "Black Church" in order to signify the psychological transition "from Emmett Till the character to Emmett Till the person who is now in a spiritual state that is being ritualized in the church (listen here)." This example offers an additional window into the overall structure of Ten Freedom Summers. Because the collection operates as an examination of the psychological development of the civil rights struggle, the repetition of musical elements depicts the ongoing impact of earlier events or persons on later developments, as represented in the other pieces that make up the body of work.

Smith goes on to emphasize that just as it is not technically a suite, the album also should not be thought of as a "jazz" work. Smith rejects that designation, preferring the term "creative music." This distinction is important because, although Ten Freedom Summers clearly contains aesthetics from the jazz, classical, and blues traditions, the collection belongs to none of these genres. Pointing out that the collection exceeds four hours in length, Smith unpacks this distinction:

"[W]hen you use large forms, you have to incorporate [many] elements. This form that I am using is akin to the dramatic form that we call opera or the symphonic form. It's looking at how you make an interesting progression of musical material that must also show some transformation of the notion of style, of form, and how you move content. You move it by using these particular referents like jazz and blues and traditional classical music and you find that that mobilizes the material that you are trying to present (listen here)."

Furthermore, Smith explains: "The largest portion that goes into the music are issues of being creative. Meaning the classical players make creative choices in every piece that they play. They are making choices that could have been made differently by a different ensemble or if different individuals were brought into the ensemble. That's a creative process. With the Golden Quintet and Quartet, all of that music is written in the same way. There are critical choices of how to play the written music and also personal choices on how you select to play that material."

Smith makes no distinction between the material on the album composed for the chamber orchestra as opposed to the quintet/quartet. Both contain written material and improvisational material. Both ensembles are required to engage in creative improvisation and both must interact with each other (listen here). In this way, they are integrated at each level, another manifestation of the means by which Smith's compositional processes operate. Each element of the collection has been crafted to capture the whole of Smith's vision, conveying his message of reflection on the gains of the civil rights movements and inspiration for a call to continued action.

The Politics of Freedom

Underpinning that vision is Smith's honed political philosophy grounded in civil engagement and the importance of legal rights. A number of the pieces in Ten Freedom Summers refer to court decisions or laws, such as Brown v. Board of Education. "I place a strong emphasis on the legal content of freedom," states Smith, explaining that for years he carried a copy of the Constitution with him because, "The Constitution is the [fundamental] legal document we live under. Everyone has access to that document, but most people don't know anything about it other than it is an important piece of paper. The Constitution and the main amendments, I believe, should be reread at least once a year. There is no way to understand what your rights are unless you revitalize the notion of what they are. I have documents in my house that show all the committees and processes a bill goes through to become law. We need to know these things if we are to truly call ourselves Americans."

Smith's political perspective does not end there. Other touchstones he considers critical include Henry David Thoreau, whose Civil Disobedience (1849) and Walden Pond (1854) he rereads regularly, as well as Frederick Douglas, whose belief that the struggle for civil rights requires constant agitation Smith avows. For Smith, progress is not a linear process whereby one gain forms the foundation of the next.

"To safeguard rights in any democracy, your role as citizens of those societies is to continuously advocate for justice and rights. The contract constantly has to be renovated in order to guarantee the rights of the people are upheld."

The reason this contract needs continuous revalidation is that there are inevitably forces at work committed to dismantling the gains. In short, there is a continuous pitched battle between those who would advance freedom and those would quash individual rights.

Smith does not see this struggle in abstract terms. He believes that the advancements Ten Freedom Summers celebrates are under imminent threat today, and that the country—and the globe—face a period during which the battle for rights must be rejoined. It is for this reason that Smith released Ten Freedom Summers this year, and for this reason that Smith emphasizes his work should not be seen only in historical terms, but also as a call to arms. Smith identifies an urgent need to examine the civil rights movement and to engage directly in a renewed, global effort to defend and expand human rights.

"As a people and a planet, not just as Americans but everywhere, we have lost our society. We have lost it primarily because we have allowed it to happen without any clear direct action. We have allowed corporations to have the same rights and the same power [as citizens]. They are involved in our political system, both the legal context and the illegal context, through Superpacs and things like that. Though they claim those things are legal, they are in fact illegal. They need to be challenged."

Smith draws a direct connection between the election of President Obama and the civil rights movement. That is why Smith selected the famous shot of the March on Washington for the cover of Ten Freedom Summers, which, Smith points out, Obama referenced in the staging of his inauguration. Smith is among the ranks of Americans who see Obama's election in part as a fulfillment of the promise of the civil rights movement. But Smith also believes that the current election cycle carries profound repercussions. "If, in fact, we deny a reelection of this president, I think that our country is in deep, deep trouble and everyone in this society is in trouble.

"We have had a preview of what happens when this Republican system goes into work," Smith continues." Look what it's done to women's rights right now. Look what it's done to human rights. Look what it would like to do to the education system. All these things are bad for our society. It's a clear distinction.

"[Our rights] are being wiped out," Smith concludes. "The Republicans seem to have an open field to come up with any idea they want to that limits the political process that democracy is supposed to guarantee."

Aside from his concern for the reelection of President Obama, Smith is concerned with developments beyond the borders of the United States and outside the traditional focus of the civil rights movement. Smith perceives the struggle for civil rights as reaching a new stage, one in which "we need to have all the groups that deal with rights and privileges" to unite forces, because "[w]hen a movement concerns everybody, then it has the greatest chance to establish institutions of equality."

For this reason, Smith feels the Occupy Movement merits more attention and represents the seed of a powerful and necessary global movement for change. Smith draws a parallel to the civil rights movement in that the civil rights movement likewise was dismissed in its infancy. Moreover, like the Occupy Movement, it did not immediately achieve its goals. "[The] people who are standing on the sidelines when the Occupy Movement comes out, saying 'Well, they are just kids,' it's because they have not revitalized the notion of themselves as free people. The Occupy Movement is happening all over the world. Every time governments and the news media think they have killed it, it rises back up. And that's the way you do it. You do not stay on the front lines forever. You have waves and motion."

All of this ties back to the structure as well as the content of Ten Freedom Summers, where the integrated unit is comprised of the three dominant themes of musical innovation, spiritual seeking, and politics. Like the notes of a chord, these themes can be identified separately but, when combined, they offer the listener a clarion call to action. As Smith says: "I would like to think that the notion of harmony and balance in musical terms that I was able to achieve in this piece—that is, the balance between the two worldviews of the classical and the contemporary creative artist—that balance itself clearly demonstrates [the] idea [of continued action].

It also shows that the world is one big unit and that world being one big unit means we can use this model as an example of unification, or this model as a way in which to strive towards unification as a planet."

The end result is a monumental work that, through alternating moments of soaring strings, cacophonous polyrhythm and competing improvisations, somber bass solos and sonorous trumpet calls, represents a profound journey of contemplative quiescence, mournful reflection, and exhilarating hope. For all its complexity, that is the achievement of Ten Freedom Summers— its ability to discard preconceptions and deliver an experience of beauty in truth.

Selected Discography

Wadada Leo Smith, Ten Freedom Summers (Cueniform, 2012)

Wadada Leo Smith, Dark Lady of the Sonnets (TUM Records , 2011)

Henry Kaiser/Wadada Leo Smith Yo Miles!, Shinjuku (There Records, 2011)

Henry Kaiser/Wadada Leo Smith Yo Miles!, Lightning (There Records, 2011)

Wadada Leo Smith, The Blue Mountain's Sun Drummer (Kabell, 2010)

Wadada Leo Smith, Spiritual Dimensions (Cuneiform, 2009)

Wadada Leo Smith, America (Tzadik, 2009)

Wadada Leo Smith, Tabliq (Cuneiform, 2008)

Henry Kaiser/Wadada Leo Smith Yo Miles!, Sky Garden (Cuneiform, 2004)

Wadada Leo Smith, Red Sulphur Sky (Tzadik, 2001)

Henry Kaiser/Wadada Leo Smith, Yo Miles! (Shanachie, 1998)

Wadada Leo Smith, Tao-Njia (Tzadik, 1996)

Wadada Leo Smith, Akhreanvention (Kabell, 1981)

Marion Brown, Geechie Recollections (Impulse!, 1973)

Wadada Leo Smith, Creative Music (Kabell, 1972)

Anthony Braxton, 3 Compositions of New Jazz (Delmark, 1968)

Photo Credits

Page 1: Martin Morissette

All Other Photos: Courtesy of Wadada Leo Smith

Comments

Tags


For the Love of Jazz
Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Jazz article: Steely Dan's Jon Herington and Jim Beard
Jazz article: Hermon Mehari: American Jazz, Eritrean Echoes
Jazz article: Veronica Swift: Breaking It Up, Making It New
Jazz article: Ralph Lalama: A Disciple, Not a Clone

Popular

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.