Wadada Leo Smith: The Teacher

AAJ: Which also had a lot of its inspiration from the civil rights and human rights movement of Gandhi.

WLS: Exactly right. Gandhi's existence, that idea of nonviolence that Martin Luther King preached was influenced by Gandhi, and Tolstoy. Gandhi was influenced by Tolstoy. It's international. The truth is: human beings are not defined by borders or governance.

AAJ: It's recognized that jazz, blues, and folk/protest music played an important roll in the American civil rights movement. In your experience and studies have you found the same to be true in other freedom movements?

WLS: Yes. Look at Bob Marley. Look at Fela [Kuti] from Nigeria. There is [the] famous singer in Chile, he was killed while performing for an audience. Many, many, many, artists have been involved with all these popular movements for justice and human rights around the world. And all of them use music and dance as a forum not just to gather people, but as a forum to create this undeniable quest to achieve the ultimate goal for freedom and liberty.

AAJ: Why do you think music plays such a central role?

WLS: I can tell you the main reason. Music as an art form is the only art form that you can't find an example existing on earth. Now let me clarify that. In dance, human bodies represent dance. In sculpture and things like that, all those images, no matter if they are abstract, they are physical things that come from the environment which we live in. Even if it is just a round disc, or a jagged edge, it has its existence in the physical environment. But music, music doesn't have that physical base. Music comes from this other place, the same place the inspiration to do these other art forms comes from, but music is actually housed there. Not just the inspiration. It is housed there. So when you are painting a tree, you have an idea of the tree, and you can find it in the physical world. But when you play a note, you don't find that in existence.

People say what about the heartbeat, blood circulation, the sound that cars and birds make? That's not music. It has sound in it, of course. Noise also has sound in it. But is noise music? No, it's not. If organized in the context of a composition or improvisation, that distinguishes it as being a property of music. Just like, for example, the great French composer Olivier Messiaen, who recorded all the bird songs and put it into his music. Those bird sounds then become music. But before that they were not music—they were musical, but not music. There is a big distinction.

AAJ: Is that the reason spirituality and particularly certain types of spiritual expression are such a strong part of your music, is it that they are housed in the same place?

WLS: Yes, that is one of the reasons. Another reason is this. Coming up, listening to the bible being read—I was raised a Christian coming up—you find out that one of the most fascinating stories to me was the David who wrote Psalms. David for me was one of the most important characters I read about in the bible and what was he? He was an artist. He made music. He was also a prophet. He was a spiritual leader. He was also a governor. You see the connection? Artists can do all of these things. That model of David, and that model of Bob Marley, which is one and the same—or that model of [a] Sufi master who also plays music, they are one and the same. And all of that influenced me. Made me think, can instrumental music do that? Yes, it can.

It can be a political expression. It can be a spiritual expression, or any activity that we place on it in a serious context, it can express that.