If free jazz were today’s popular music, 80 year old Wadada Leo Smith would be on the cover of every magazine and featured on numberless musical blogs. His tone is impeccable, he’s got fantastic lyricism and he’s filled with a wide range of emotions. He’s also prolific as far as making music, with this 5 disc session just a portend of things to come.
As with all of Smith’s albums, it is not for background music, and seems to be spontaneously created. Here, he plays both trumpet and piano, rotating drummers, such as Pheeroan akLaff (disc one), Andrew Cyrille (disc two), Han Bennink (disc 3) and Jack DeJohnette (disc 4 &5), who also adds some piano and keyboards.
The set with AkLaff, entitled “Litanies, Prayers and Meditations” has Smith in declaratory form on “The Prayer (For Keith Jarrett” while he trudges with the drummer on “First Meditation From The Heart”. His muted horn bops on the mild “Part IV” of “Rumis Masnavi”, and is bluesy on “A Sonic Litany of Peace”, piercing with the drums on “A The Patriot Act”.
With Cyrille, he splats around the cymbals on “The Patriot Act”, goes dark with surrounding mallets for “Havana, the Maghrib Prayer and Reflections” and sounds very Milesy when muted on “A Rainbow Sonic Ark for Tomasz Ludwik Stanko”, even getting as lyrical as Herb Alpert on “Haiti, an Independent Nation…”
Smith is a master of the long tones, funereal and lyical with Han Bannink on “Largo: A Mysterious Love Sonic” . He clips the notes like they were musical toe nails around paradiddles on “Louis Armstrong in New York City and Accra, Ghana” and is loose around the rumbling drums of “Ornette Coleman at the World’s Fair…”, again sounding kinda blueish when muted for “Johnny Dyani…”
His “Freedom Summer, The Legacy” album with DeJohnette has the famed drummer playing impressive and thoughtful piano on “Sandalwood and Sage” while mixing piano and keyboards on a dreamy reverie of “Meditation…” going a bit dark with the two instruments on “Silence, Quietness and Very Still”. For the last album entitled “Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains”, DeJohnette sticks to drums, giving a snazzy workout on “The Supreme Fountain” and Smith delivering a warm vibrato on a solo aria of “Pomegranates and Herbal Teas”. The music requires concentration for full appreciation, but it always brings rewards.