Vijay Iyer - Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday

December 9, 2021

Label: TUM Records, 2021

Personnel - Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet; Vijay Iyer: piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B3, electronics; Jack DeJohnette: drums.

Wadada Leo Smith is a heavyweight of the trumpet, one of the most emblematic figures in the 21st century avant-garde jazz. Beautiful things happened when, in 2016, he gathered with two other jazz giants and reliable partners, the pianist Vijay Iyer and the drummer Jack DeJohnette. The result is Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday, a five-track album with compositions of each plus one collective improvisation. DeJohnette and Iyer played with Smith in two different versions of his Golden Quartet, but never together.

Masterfully introduced by the drummer, whose tom-tom work balances wet and dry sounds in perfection, “Billie Holiday: a Love Sonnet” is one of Smith’s many dedications to the iconic American jazz singer referred in the title. The trumpeter begins his emotional phrases with pensive deliberation, but the colors drawn from Iyer’s opulent harmonies encourage him to hurl us into a vertiginous sequence. Whether subdued or zestful, DeJohnette’s drumming is unceasingly fantastic.

Smith makes another dedication with “The A.D. Opera: A Long Vision with Imagination, Creativity and Fire, a dance opera”, which was written for the pianist Anthony Davis, a long-time collaborator and also a member of his above mentioned quartet. The piano comes dressed in folk and avant-garde outfits, the trumpet is beautiful in tone and pinpoint in the attacks, while the reassuring drum work completes the poetic scenario. At some point, Iyer switches to organ, probing more mysterious tones, and then reverts to piano again for the hyper section that precedes an unruffled finale.

Iyer’s “Deep Time No. 1” features an excerpt of Malcolm X’s 1964 speech “By Any Means Necessary” over a pastoral-like texture spangled with electronics and organ, while DeJohnette’s “Song for World Forgiveness” is a poignant, selfless hymn of peace. This latter piece is taken to a broad spiritual sense, with the pianist and the drummer entangled in textures over which Smith towers his horn with certainty. It all ends in a liberating vamped sequence.

The trio wraps up with “Rocket”, a four-and-a-half-minute collective improvisation which, suggesting a blues progression, contains psychedelic Hammond, a sparkling rhythmic routine made of hi-hat, snare and bass drum, and explorative trumpet.

Smith, Iyer and DeJohnette bring their signature warmth and authenticity to music whose structure is not in disagreement with open-ended strategies.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Bille Holiday: A Love Sonnet ► 04 - Song for World Forgiveness ► 05 - Rocket

Wadada Leo Smith with Milford Graves and Bill Laswell - Sacred Ceremonies

May 26, 2021

Label: TUM Records, 2021

Personnel - Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet; Bill Laswell: electric bass; Milford Graves: drums, percussion.

To celebrate his 80th birthday, the distinguished avant-garde trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith releases a 3 CD box set, Sacred Ceremonies, in the company of the experimental electric bassist Bill Laswell and the late free-jazz drummer Milford Graves. The recording, which took place at Laswell’s studio in New Jersey, is the product of three separate one-day sessions, with the first two volumes emerging as duos (trumpet/drums and trumpet/bass) and the third, the main focus of this review, in the trio format.

“Social Justice - a Fire for Reimagining the World” gets the ceremonies under way with percolating tribal drums and magnetizing cymbals that sound like a symphony to me, warped bass sounds devised with incantatory mysticism, and ultra-precise trumpet phrases that appeal more than moan while dancing on top of a reverberating groove occasionally modulated by wah-wah effect.

With these three extraordinary explorers, the improvisation can go anywhere as they discover as they go. Sometimes magical and ravishing, sometimes intriguing and dark, the music immerses the listeners in angular forms that are consistently good from start to finish.

“Myths of Civilizations and Revolutions” stresses the polyrhythmic artistry of Graves, whose work never overshadows the ever-surprising Laswell. The latter's command of the fretboard generates a blend of astute underpinnings with chromatic tension, offbeat textures and momentary silvery melodicism. His lockstep hypnotic vamps explore certain timbral-shadings that often makes his bass sound like a guitar, as we can hear on “Truth in Expansion”. Here, his two-minute solo intro involves us completely in the mood before merging experimental funk with post-rock and fusion chordal work. The close interplay, incorporating clear yet irregular drum patterns and cutting trumpet lines, creates an astounding range of emotions.

The closing piece, “Ruby Red Largo - a Sonnet” has a trembling, mantric-like bass drawing from a variety of ethnic traditions with Smith’s trumpet soaring high and mighty atop. Underneath all this, Grave’s beautifully tuned percussion provides not only solid ground but also a profusion of color.

Structural elements are connected with atypical exhibitions of sentiment, turning these unique meetings into amazing and unshakeable sonic worlds of their own. The album is dedicated to Graves, who passed away in February this year.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Social Justice - a Fire for Reimagining the World ► 03 - Truth in Expansion ► 07 - Ruby Red Largo - a Sonnet

Wadada Leo Smith / Douglas R. Ewart / Mike Reed - Sun Beans of Shimmering Light

March 9, 2021

Label: Astral Spirits, 2021

Personnel - Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet; Douglas R. Ewart: woodwinds; Mike Reed: drums.

Sun Beans of Shimmering Light is a fantastic set of improvised music by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, Jamaican-born woodwind player Douglas R. Ewart and drummer Mike Reed, all AACM musicians known for bringing a fresh perspective to any project.

This special encounter happened in 2015, but, criminally, only now is being released on the Astral Spirits label. As a true sensory catharsis, the music takes several forms, sometimes going from delightfully descriptive to energetically dynamic. The opening track, “Constellations and Conjunctional Spaces”, wields contemplative, audacious and prayerful moments in a constant exchange of energies. By plunging their instruments in tonal contrasts, Smith and Ewart create beautiful effects during a dialogue that stirs passion. While the former artist embraces infinite abstraction and multiphonic enchantment, the latter takes us to exotic places, exploring astringent cascading lines, whether on the bassoon or the sopranino. Reed’s pummeling percussion is often amorphous but well honed, cohering with whatever it’s going on at the fore.

The album’s title track displays crystal clear trumpet notes underpinned by chiming and rattling percussion at first, before evolving into a meditation with flute at the center. Near the end, this same flute probes elliptical trajectories, becoming occasionally percussive as it supports the boldness of Simth’s muted trumpet.

“Super Moon Rising” assimilates extra percussion in the aesthetics, imposing the majesty of toms, cymbals and snare drum rolls in order to grapple with the fierceness and the projection of the trumpet. Ewart then skitters around between Eastern-patterned arches before expressing his final thoughts.

Although enjoying the freedom of not having to deal with tempo, the trio suggests a three time feel on the introductory riff of the short “Dark Tango”, whose intuitive denouement is fabulous.

Each track churns with impressively cohesive ideas; all is improvised, nothing is disjointed. Hence, what Smith, Ewart and Reed do here resonates with musical assurance.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Constellations and Conjunctional Spaces ► 03 - Super Moon Rising ► 05 - Dark Tango

Flash Reviews - Deerhoof & Wadada Leo Smith / Kepler is Free / Max Plattner Trio

August 13, 2020

DEERHOOF & WADADA LEO SMITH - TO BE SURROUNDED… (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2020)

Personnel - Satomi Matsuzaki: vocals, bass; Ed Rodriguez: bass, guitar; John Dieterich: guitar; Greg Saunier: drums + Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet.

This recording from indie-rock experimenters Deerhoof is empowered by the participation of Wadada Leo Smith, an ever-searching trumpeter and free improviser who carved out a singular path in the avant-garde sphere. His searing lines populate the five last tracks on the album, which were captured live at the NYC Winter JazzFest 2018. All 11 tunes were culled from former works, and it’s the wonderfully sung “Believe E.S.P.” that opens the album, churning an uncompromising indie-rock professed with muscle, energy and tons of noise. The playful thrash riot of “Polly Bee”, the cathartic and eccentric “Bad Kids to the Front”, and the power-chord-filled “I Will Spite Survive”, which emerges in arena rock mode, are all delivered with the expected energy for which we know them. The illustrious guest Wadada infuses his loud projections in the Talking Heads-oriented “Snoopy Waves”, interacts with the furious guitar incendiarism of “Breakup Songs”, and adapts incredibly well to the reggae vibes in “Mirror Monster”. The mercurial “Last Fad”, which abounds in gorgeous guitar detail and giddy trumpet presence, is the longest piece at nearly nine minutes. [B+]

KEPLER IS FREE - TEEGARDEN (Veego Records, 2020)

Personnel - Nikiforos Nugent: keys; Spiros Zardas: trumpet; Giorgos Migdanis: guitar; Vassilis Alexopoulos: bass; Sokratis Tsentoglou: drums.

The debut album by eclectic Athens-based group Kepler is Free consists of five tracks that seamlessly blend disparate musical styles. On the first minutes of “Bennu”, a pounding, pedaling bass pulse underpins atmospheric guitar tones and synth tides. This smooth surface becomes rugged as a consequence of an electro-rock texture weaved with distortion and half-cerebral, half-improvised trumpet lines hovering overhead. “Teegarden b” and “Habitable Zone” are palpable sonic frames infused with soul and jazz. The former relies on a circular groove in seven - with slippery bass and a routinely syncopated rhythm - and features a keyboard solo with manifest guitar comping in the background; the latter piece, initially marked by synth loops, denotes changes in pace and direction. Migdanis’ free funk chops here prepare our ears to “Cluster 3”, a combination of funk and electronica that achieves an anthemic status by the end. “Juno” steps into more commercial territories and concludes the session with a hip-hop feel in the beat, guitar-driven melodies, and the voice and lyrics of Kalli. Although somewhat lumpy and programmatic in its structural blocks, the band shows to have a sense of direction. [B-]

MAX PLATTNER TRIO - II (Cracked Anegg Records, 2020)

Personnel - Lorenzo Sighel: tenor saxophone; Marco Stagni: double and electric basses; Max Plattner: drums.

Austrian young drummer/composer Max Plattner has a knack for song structures that involve enjoyable melodies, improvisation and groove. For his debut album, II, he opted for the typical saxophone-bass-drums format, playing alongside a pair of Italian musicians. “Cooking” makes for an enticing opening, featuring Lorenzo Sighel’s clear-cut sax phrasing over a round, thick and loud propulsive rhythmic drive. Bass player Marco Stein delivers a chant-like improv here, whereas on “Love Song” he opts for an ambient chordal-like work offset by Plattner’s chunky slams. “Chopped Up” is a danceable rave-up with claps and vocals; “Il Nano Masticatore” channels the energy into Charlie Parker’s artistry with playful bop melodies, fragmented rhythms and a firmly locked swing; “Rips Are Cage of Emotions” finds a balance between nontoxic punk rock and sensitive post-bop; “Welcome to Sodoma & Gomorrah” has a more experimental vibe with traces of free bop; while the ebb and flow of “Neuschee” is rippled by sprightly brushwork, a caravan-like groove and mood variations that include both meditative and rock-infused passages. The results are consistently pleasant to listen to, with the trio showing off a confident sense of identity. [B+]

Wadada Leo Smith - Rosa Parks: Pure Love

February 11, 2019

Label: TUM Records, 2019

Personnel – Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet; Min Xiao-fen: voice, pipa; Karen Parks: voice; Carmina Escobar: voice; Shalini Vijayan: violin; Mona Tian: violin; Andrew McIntosh: viola; Ashley Walters: cello; Ted Daniel: trumpet; Hugh Ragin: trumpet; Graham Haynes: cornet; Pheeroan akLaff: drum set; Hardedge: electronics.

The creativity of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, a dominant figure of the avant-jazz scene, boasts unlimited musical boundaries, crispness of sound, and resolute leadership. Besides mirroring these capabilities in his attractive way of playing, Smith is a conscious man and activist.

His new outing, Rosa Parks: Pure Love - an oratorio of seven songs - consists in a set of triumphal hymns presented like an extended suite and arranged according to his unique style and vision. Paying tribute to the iconic civil rights activist mentioned in the title, the album features a double quartet, three female vocalists, a drummer and an electronics wizard, as well as samplings of recordings by Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Steve McCall, and Smith. It’s a philosophical type of narrative where the bandleader experiments his own musical language, Ankhrasmation, on top of the traditional oratorio form.

Segments and tunes are grouped conveniently, and “Prelude” opens the recording like a reveille, calling the attention for the civil rights through elongated trumpet notes in unison that soon take us to “Vision Dance 1: Resistance and Unity”. The latter’s tonal magnitude bursts in a magisterial chamber phenomenon. I appoint these dances as the most absorbing parts on the album, the ones with more focus on improvisation.

“Vision Dance 2”, for instance, flexes and contorts, pulled by poised rhythmic undercurrents and electronic noises. Fragmented in the beat and slightly disjointed in the articulation, the tune aggregates excerpts from Braxton’s “Composition 8D” and McCall’s rousing drum work on Air’s “No. 2”. While “Vision Dance 3” is a chamber feast sketched with pre-recorded percussion, multiple muted trumpets, and flickering violin waves, “Vision Dance 4” is bookended by trumpet duets that show the bandleader playing alongside Graham Haynes.

The importance of the stringed instruments in shaping the momentum of the tunes can be observed throughout. Other highlights are “Song 3: Change It!”, which features an excerpt of Jenkins’ violin (“Keep On Trucking, Brother”), Karen Parks’ potent voice, and the inspired percussive jolts of Pheeroan akLaff; “Song 5: No Fear”, the only one featuring lyrics by Rosa Parks; and “The Known World: Apartheid”, where Smith is featured as a soloist.

Mounted as an Oriental folk song, “Song 1: The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 381 Days: Fire” has Min Xiao-fen singing with operatic enunciation while playing the pipa with earnestness. The melodic sound of the violin confers it a yearning sweetness.

With quizzical parts and curious editing, this is a record with both polished and rugged chamber surfaces, feeling more earthly rooted when compared with the stunning America’s National Parks (TUM, 2016). Even less impactful than the latter, Rosa Parks: Pure Love breathes confidence and deserves attention for its musical and political statements.

Favorite Tracks:
02 - Vision Dance 1 ► 06 - Vision Dance 2 ► 07 - Song 3: Change It!

Wadada Leo Smith - Najwa

November 7, 2017

Label/Year: TUM Records, 2017

Lineup – Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet; Brandon Ross: guitar; Michael Gregory Jackson: guitar; Henry Kaiser: guitar; Lamar Smith: guitar; Bill Laswell: electric bass; Pheeroan AkLaff: drums; Adam Rudolph: percussion.

Trumpeter-composer Wadada Leo Smith owns an inimitable avant-jazz voice and an out-of-the-box creativity that is patented throughout a prolific career. If last year he delighted me twice with A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (duo record with pianist Vijay Iyer) and America’s National Park, this year he strikes again with another couple of powerful albums, Solo Reflections and Meditations on Monk and the object of this review, Najwa, a bow to major American jazz artists.

The album’s acute bite comes not only from Wadada’s limpid sequence of notes, but also from quirky textures weaved by the four guitarists in service: Brandon Ross, Michael Gregory Jackson, Henry Kaiser, and Lamar Smith, plus the constantly ominous bass presence of Bill Laswell and the impressive, ever-adaptable percussive flow by drummer Pheeroan AkLaff. The rhythms are magnified by the actions of percussionist Adam Rudolph.

The duskily cosmic “Ornette Coleman’s Harmolodic Sonic Hierographic Forms” is a transformational and explorative combination of distorted guitar acidity, dark and powerful bass lines, polyrhythmic disinhibition, and the shimmering phrasing of the bandleader. Passing the initial commotion, the rhythm becomes steady and the trumpet cries on top of atmospheric surroundings fed by recurrent bass slides and perplexing, multi-dimensional guitar innuendos.

With the unbeatable spirituality of A Love Supreme in mind, “Ohnedaruth John Coltrane” pays a tribute to the legendary saxophonist by sustaining a sonic liquidity that encapsulates assertive unisons, scattered electric guitar spasms burning in multiple effects, penetrating wha-wha bass licks, and brumous drum assaults. On top of that, Wadada’s stream of conscious improvisation, often encompassing long high notes interspersed with kinetic phrases, forces the rotation between fluidity and motionless. Midway, the rhythmic flow unexpectedly veers to a pacific hip-hop/funky groove that persists until the end.

Immersed in ethereal electronic ambiguity and reviving Miles’ muted trumpet, the short title track spreads balmy breezes before the band busts through boundaries that separate creative jazz and progressive rock on “Roland Shannon Jackson”, a tribute to the pioneer avant-jazz/free-funk drummer of the same name. Naturally, the tune’s epicenter is located on AkLaff’s unhesitating pulses with irregular hi-hat attacks, powerful tom-tom timbres, and colorful cymbal crashes. Notwithstanding, the tension that rushes out of the rhythm section’s constant charge contrasts with the tranquil melody.

For the last number, “The Empress, Lady Day”, the group abstains from the noir urban feel in favor of a fragile placidity. The composition, dedicated to Billie Holiday, passes a sensation of widely spacious due to floating harmonies and vague acoustic guitar rambles.

Even with four avid-for-action guitarists in the roster, Wadada eschews unnecessary clashes or insubstantial sonic transgressions. In turn, and taking advantage of all timbral possibilities, he takes us out of our comfort zones with unflinching, daring, and sculptural forms and sounds.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Ornette Coleman’s Harmolodic Sonic Hierographic Forms ► 02 - Ohnedaruth John Coltrane ► 05 - The Empress, Lady Day

Wadada Leo Smith - America's National Parks

September 28, 2016

Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet; Anthony Davis: piano, Ashley Walters: cello; John Lindberg: bass; Pheeroan akLaff: drums.

Wadada Leo Smith, a gritty and lyrically stunning trumpeter/composer, releases a double CD stuffed with highly-articulated music that envisions to provide historic insight and social-political conscience about the America’s National Parks.
Similar to what had happened in “The Great Lake Suites” (2014), each disc comprises three movements. However, the band Wadada enlisted for this project was an expansion of his dream-team of veterans known as The Golden Quartet (Anthony Davis on piano, John Lindberg on bass, and Pheeroan akLaff on drums), with the acquisition of the young cellist Ashley Walters, who adds a chamberesque texture and diversified colors to the organic divagations.
“New Orleans” is an incredible 20-minute piece that advances like an enigmatic dark dance, hypnotizing us with its quasi-theatrical inflections of deep dramatic weight. Lindberg and AkLaff do a superb collective job, transforming the tune into a sort of ritual that gains a lofty expressiveness through Davis’ uncanny chords and Wadada’s emphatic attacks. Later on, the cello transfigures this prior nature into a hearty moan.
In “Eileen Jackson Southern” the levels of abstraction and introspection are considerably raised. Wadada’s trumpet, frequently hitting long high-pitched notes, opposes to the cello-piano mosaics that occur in a lower register. “Yellowstone’s intro, configured by trumpet, piano, and then cello, takes its time to engage in a fantastic 4/4 groove laid down by Lindberg, a stupendous bassist who boasts a ravishing sound. Davis also deserves an ovation for his fast-moving right-hand approach while the bandleader’s bravura comes from the soul, not from the head.
The CD2 opens with the volatile 31-minute movement “The Mississippi River”, which takes us on a dark and mournful trip to a past of awes. After a while, it brings us lusty protests delivered in the form of cyclic harmonic episodes.
The shortest tune of the record, “Sequoia/Kings Canyon”, features Wadada in great interactions with his peers, especially akLaff during the final improvised section. The brilliant suite culminates with the sparse “Yosemite”, an exercise in contemporary chamber music.
Cerebrally structured and emotionally haunting, this is a literate masterpiece that will marvel not only the trumpeter’s followers but also the avant-gardists in general.

Favorite Tracks:
01 (cd1) – New Orleans ► 03 (cd1) – Yellowstone ► 01 (cd2) – The Mississippi River

Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith - A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke

August 8, 2016

Vijay Iyer: piano, Fender Rhodes, electronics; Wadada Leo Smith: trumpet.

When the highly sensitive chords and textures created by the pianist Vijay Iyer meet the pungent trumpet melodies of Wadada Leo Smith, there are uncanny sensations floating in the air.
“Passage” displays a melodic cry over a dramatic foundation that inhabits between the beautiful and the dark.
In “All Becomes Alive”, Iyer makes use of electronic components, introducing a 2-note bass ostinato. In turn, Smith exposes his impressive technique through exquisite and precise melodic phrases. This song becomes enchantingly percussive in its final section.
Mysterious tones created by Iyer involve “The Empty Mind Receives”, where Smith uses a trumpet mute to express himself slowly and clearly.
“Labyrinths” is a spontaneous avant-garde incursion that makes justice to its title, entangling us in grandiose piano/trumpet explorations.
Spaceships, planets, and distant galaxies came to my mind in “A Divine Courage”, whose ominous vibes in the background give place to a ravishing cinematic atmosphere.
“Notes on Water”, despite the tranquilizing start and Iyer’s residual accompaniment on Fender Rhodes, evolves into a mesmerizing crescendo where Smith’s attacks can be compared to tumults of temper and emotion.
In this haunting achievement, minimalism and virtuosity are deeply interconnected.

Favorite Tracks:
01 – Passage ► 02 – All Becomes Alive ► 04 – Labyrinths