Wadada Leo Smith

An adventurous trumpeter, Wadada Leo Smith ranks among the most inventive composers and musical theorists to arise from the 1960s jazz vanguard. Development of his systemic musical language Ankhrasmation started in 1965 and has shaped every subsequent project. In the 1970s he presented the language on self-released Kabell label recordings such as 1972's Creative Music -- 1 (Six Solo Improvisations) and 1975's Reflectativity, as well as on 1978's Divine Love and 1993's Kulture Jazz, both issued by ECM. During the 1990s Smith put out well-received Tzadik albums that included Tao-Njia and Red Sulphur Sky. Tzadik brought forth his Golden Quartet debut in 2000. Ten Freedom Summers, an oratorio addressing the Civil Rights Era, was recorded by Smith in 2012 and earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Finland's Tum has likewise put forward thematically focused releases such as 2014's Great Lakes Suite. The long-form work America's National Parks appeared in 2016 and received a Doris Duke prize. Smith's Rosa Parks: Pure Love, An Oratorio of Seven Songs received its New York City premiere in 2019. To mark his 80th birthday in 2021, Tum released six recordings that encompassed the boxed sets Sacred Ceremonies (trio), Trumpet (solo), and The Chicago Symphonies (quartet). The label wrapped up the observance in June 2022 with two further boxed collections, Emerald Duets and String Quartets Nos. 1-12.

Born Ishmael Leo Smith in Leland, Mississippi, in 1941, he first engaged with music while in high school through concert and marching bands. French horn, drums, and mellophone preceded his switch to trumpet. Formal training came via stepfather Alex Wallace, the U.S. Military Band program in 1963, and the Sherwood School of Music from 1967 to 1969. Early 1960s work in R&B combos and Army bands preceded his role as an early member of Chicago's AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians).

Research and design of the abstract musical language Ankhrasmation commenced in 1965. Its initial recorded use occurred on "The Bell" from Anthony Braxton's debut album 3 Compositions of New Jazz. Smith established the Kabell label in 1972 to issue his own recordings, beginning with the solo album Creative Music -- 1 that same year.

He also co-established the avant-improvisational group Creative Construction Company alongside violinist Leroy Jenkins and Anthony Braxton; the ensemble toured Europe in the late 1960s. The trio recorded Silence for Freedom Records in 1974 and a self-titled album in 1975 while Smith studied ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University, with Ornette Coleman serving as recording supervisor.

Kiom Press issued Notes (8 Pieces) Source a New World Music: Creative Music in 1973, the first collection of Smith's writings on music. During his Wesleyan period he also instructed at the University of New Haven and formed the New Dalta Ahkri, an under-documented ensemble whose rotating roster featured Henry Threadgill, Davis, and Oliver Lake. The group cut two Kabell albums: 1975's Reflectativity and 1977's Song of Humanity (Kanta Pri Homoro). In 1975 he additionally recorded with Marion Brown in the Creative Improvisation Ensemble and appeared on the seminal Geechee Recollections. After departing Wesleyan, Smith performed with Braxton in 1976 and recorded with Derek Bailey's Company. Spirit Catcher appeared under his own name on Nessa Records in 1979; that year he also entered a non-exclusive agreement with Manfred Eicher's ECM label, which released the widely praised Divine Love.

Throughout the 1980s Smith worked extensively in Europe with bassist Peter Kowald and percussionist Günter Sommer. Their collaborations yielded Touch the Earth (1980) and If You Want the Kernels, You Have to Break the Shells (1982) on Germany's FMP label. Having adopted the mbira, an African thumb piano, he incorporated the instrument regularly thereafter. The same trio recorded Human Rights in 1986, issued jointly by Kabell and Gramm. Around this period he embraced Rastafarianism and adopted the name Wadada Leo Smith. Teaching at Bard College began in 1987.

Procession of the Great Ancestry was recorded under his own name on Chief Records in 1989, as was the album Interludes of Breath and Substance with composer and pianist Matthew Goodheart. Smith and Japanese percussionist Yoshisaburo Toyozumi released Cosmos Has Spirit on Scissors Records in 1992. The following year he left Bard to join the faculty at Cal Arts' Herb Alpert School of Music and issued his second ECM recording, the acclaimed solo album Kulture Jazz, on which he performed multiple instruments. His "Odwira" for 12 multi-ensembles involving 52 musicians received its premiere at Cal Arts in 1995. The enduring association with John Zorn's Tzadik label began in 1996 with Tao-Njia; the same year his Noh composition "Heart's Reflections" was first performed by a large ensemble at Merkin Concert Hall.

Prolific recording across multiple labels continued alongside teaching, touring, and composing for his principal ensembles—Golden Quartet, Silver Orchestra, and Organic—plus solo performances. The little-known trio date Prataksis with Vinny Golia and Bertram Turetzky appeared on Ninewinds in 1997. In 1998 he initiated a partnership with guitarist Henry Kaiser in the ad hoc electric avant jazz-funk ensemble Yo Miles!, dedicated to the work and example of Miles Davis' electric period; their self-titled debut was released that year. Also in 1998, Condor, Autumn Wind emerged from a collaboration with his wife, poet Harumi Makino Smith. Tzadik issued Light Upon Light in 1999, while Cambria released his first contemporary classical album, Southwest Chamber Music.

At the start of the new century Smith delivered two Tzadik albums: Reflectativity, featuring Anthony Davis and Malachi Favors Mogoustous, and the debut recording by the Golden Quartet, which added drummer Jack DeJohnette. During the decade, ensembles including the Kronos Quartet, the California EAR Unit, the New York New Music Ensemble, the AACM Orchestra, and ne(x)tworks began presenting his compositions. Reunions with Braxton produced two Pi Recordings albums, Organic Resonance (2003) and Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace (2004). The latter year proved especially active: Yo Miles! issued its second set, Yo Miles: Sky Garden; Tzadik released Lake Biwa; he participated in Spring Heel Jack's electronica-jazz project The Sweetness of the Water on Thirsty Ear; and he joined John Zorn's month-long 50th-birthday concert series alongside saxophonist and drummer Susie Ibarra. Tzadik also issued the illustrated retrospective boxed set The Kabell Years, 1971-1979.

Three recordings appeared in 2005: Snakish on Leo Records with Walter and Katya Quintus, Miroslav Tadic, and Mark Nauseef; the second Yo Miles! album Upriver, drawn from the same sessions as Sky Garden; and Dreams & Secrets, a collaboration between the Smith/Kaiser unit N'Da Kulture and African vocalist Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited. In 2006 Smith supervised the premiere of "Tabligh" for double ensemble, performed by the Golden Quartet and Classical Persian Ensemble at Merkin Concert Hall, and collaborated with Adam Rudolph on Compassion, co-released by Kabell and Meta. A subsequent performance of "Tabligh" occurred at the Aklbank Music Festival with the Golden Quartet and Suleyman Erguner's classical Turkish ensemble; the work finally appeared on Cuneiform in 2008. The Golden Quartet at that time comprised pianist Vijay Iyer, bassist John Lindberg, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. A documentary film about the group, Freedom Now, directed by Jacques Goldstein, was released on DVD the same year.

Reissues of earlier Nessa and ECM material surfaced in 2008 and 2009, alongside two significant new releases. The widely praised Spiritual Dimensions, a double-disc set on Cuneiform, presented Smith in quintet and nonet configurations with members of the Golden Quartet plus guitarists Brandon Ross and Nels Cline. A duet album with DeJohnette, America, appeared on Tzadik and included the composition "The Blue Mountain Sun Drummer (For Ed Blackwell)," which prompted a 2010 Kabell album of the same title documenting a live October 1986 performance by Blackwell and the trumpeter at Brandeis University.

The second decade of the century opened with the double-disc Heart's Reflections by his Organic band on Cuneiform, containing all-new material rather than the 1995 composition of the same name and performed by a large ensemble whose range extended from electric and avant to funky jazz and systematic improvisation. A new trio called Mbira, featuring drummer Pheeroan akLaff and Min Xiao-Fen on pipa and voice (with Smith on trumpet and flügelhorn and no mbira present), was formed in 2011; its debut, Dark Lady of the Sonnets, appeared in early 2012. Later that year Cuneiform released the four-disc Civil Rights oratorio Ten Freedom Summers, while a duet recording with drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo, Ancestors, also emerged. In summer 2013, amid U.S. and European festival performances of Ten Freedom Summers (which again received a Pulitzer nomination), Occupy the World, a collaboration with bassist John Lindberg and the big band Tumo, was issued. A further collaborative project with George Lewis on trombone and John Zorn on sax, titled Sonic Rivers and featuring original visual artwork by Smith, appeared on Tzadik in mid-2014. Another major work, Great Lakes Suites, followed on Tum in mid-September, led by a quartet that included Lindberg, Jack DeJohnette, and Henry Threadgill. Smith also performed trumpet in an improvisational quartet with keyboardist Jamie Saft, bassist Joe Morris, and drummer Balazs Pandi; their debut, Red Hill, was released on Rare Noise later that month.

Amid 2015 concerts presenting Ten Freedom Summers and Great Lakes Suites, Smith recorded Celestial Weather, a duo album with Lindberg comprising three suites, on Tum. His first ECM appearance since 1993 occurred in March 2016 in a duo collaboration with pianist Vijay Iyer on A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke. A Doris Duke Artist Award arrived in May, and his Ankhrasmation scores were exhibited at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, earning a 2016 Mohn Award. The collaborative release Nessuno with Pauline Oliveros, Roscoe Mitchell, and John Tilbury appeared on ReR in July. In August, marking the centennial of the Organic Act that established the National Parks Service, Smith composed another long-form work performed by his Golden Quintet—pianist Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg, Pheeroan akLaff, and cellist Ashley Walters—and recorded in a single day; Cuneiform issued the complete 90-plus-minute America's National Parks in October 2016.

Two Tum albums appeared the same day in October 2017: Solo Reflections and Meditations on Monk, containing four Thelonious Monk compositions alongside four original works inspired by the pianist/composer, and the electric Najwa, featuring bassist Bill Laswell, drummer Pheeroan akLaff, percussionist Adam Rudolph, and electric guitarists Kaiser, Brandon Ross, and Lamar Smith. A pair of duo recordings followed on Tum in 2018: Celestial Weather with Lindberg and Ancestors with Louis Moholo-Moholo. Smith also returned to ECM as a sideman with Bill Frisell on Andrew Cyrille's Lebroba.

Rosa Parks: Pure Love, An Oratorio of Seven Songs was released on Tum in early 2019. Its April debut at The Kitchen in New York City employed four ensembles—Diamond Voices, the strings-only RedKoral Quartet, the Blue Trumpet Quartet, and the Janus Duo—together with video and butoh dance. In 2020 Smith and electronic composer/multi-instrumentalist Barry Schrader issued the long-form digital single Pacific Light and Water/Wu Xing: Cycle of Destruction. April 2021 brought the completely improvised Sun Beans of Shimmering Light with drummer Mike Reed and Jamaican-born multi-instrumentalist Douglas R. Ewart.

To celebrate the trumpeter/composer's 80th birthday, European label home TUM issued volumes of previously unreleased material ranging from the multi-disc solo outing Trumpet to trios with Milford Graves and Bill Laswell (Sacred Ceremonies) and Vijay Iyer and Jack DeJohnette (A Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday) to The Chicago Symphonies with his Great Lakes Quartet. The following year Tum completed the observance with the seven-disc String Quartets Nos. 1-12 and Emerald Duets.