The
boldly original composer, trumpeter and Pulitzer Finalist Wadada Leo Smith
presents 44 Years: Retrospective featuring twelve ensembles + video, Tuesday,
April 21 – Sunday, April 26, 2015 at The Stone, Corner of Avenue C and 2nd
Street, New York City. All shows $20.
http://www.thestonenyc.com
Smith
performs a wide range of music from all phases of his career. The series begins with Structure A, on
Tuesday, April 21st and Wednesday, April 22nd. On Tuesday, April 21st at 8 p.m.
Smith performs solo in Creative Music 1 and in Sonic River featuring Smith,
alto saxophonist John Zorn and trombonist George Lewis. At 10 p.m. Smith performs Divine Love with
vibraharpist Bobby Naughton and reedman Dwight Andrews. On Wednesday, April
22nd, Smith talks about his music philosophy and language at 7 p.m. The Nile featuring Smith and sound designer
Hardedge takes place at 8 p.m. Tastalun follows at 10 p.m. featuring Smith with
cornetist Graham Haynes and trumpeter Ted Daniel.
Structure
B encompasses the music on Thursday and Friday.
Thursday, April 23rd showcases Taif: Prayer In The Garden of The Hijaz,
String Quartet No. 6 featuring The Secret Quartet with violinists Jennifer Choi
and Neil Dufallo, cellist Yves Dharamraj and violist Lev Zhurbin + Smith on
trumpet and Aruán Ortiz on piano. The Black Hole / Silence follows at 10 p.m.
featuring Smith with electric bassist Bill Laswell, pianist Yuko Fujiyama,
electric guitarist Henry Kaiser and sound designer Hardedge. Friday, April 24th begins with Mbira: Dark
Lady of the Sonnets featuring Smith with Min Xiao Fen on pipa and Pheeroan
akLaff on drums at 8 p.m. followed at 10 p.m. by Celebratory: Ornette -
Coltrane – Shannon with Smith, electric guitarists Brandon Ross and Lamar
Smith, electric bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Pheeroan akLaff.
Structure
C encompasses the final two nights of performances. Saturday, April 25 features
The Blue Mountain's Sun Drummer with Smith and percussionist Mauro Refosco at 8
p.m. followed at 10 by Ten Freedom Summers with The Golden Quartet (Smith,
pianist Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Pheeroan akLaff) +
video artist Jesse Gilbert. Sunday,
April 26 features a 7 p.m. talk by Smith about his music philosophy and
language. The Bell follows at 8 p.m.
with Smith, pianist Aruán Ortiz, bassist William Parker and percussionist Adam
Rudolph. The evening concludes at 10
p.m. with America’s Third Century Spiritual Awakening / The Year of The
Elephant The Golden Quintet (15 years: Retrospective) featuring Smith with
pianist Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg, drummer Pheeroan akLaff and
percussionist Adam Rudolph + video artist Jesse Gilbert.
Composer
and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, whose roots are in the Delta blues, is one of
the most boldly original figures in American jazz and creative contemporary
music and one of the great trumpet players of our time. As a composer, improviser, performer, music
theorist/writer and educator, Smith has devoted a lifetime to navigating the
emotional heart, spiritual soul, social significance and physical structure of
jazz to create new music of infinite possibility and nuance.
Born
December 18, 1941 in Leland, Mississippi, Smith's early musical life began at
age thirteen when he became involved with the Delta blues and jazz traditions
performing with his stepfather bluesman Alex Wallace. He also performed in his
high school concert and marching bands, and received his formal musical
education from the U.S. Military band program (1963), the Sherwood School of
Music (1967-69), and Wesleyan University (1975-76).
Part of
the first generation of musicians to come out of Chicago’s AACM (Association
for the Advancement of Creative Music), Smith formed the Creative Construction
Company together with saxophonist Anthony Braxton and violinist Leroy Jenkins.
Smith is featured on Braxton’s groundbreaking 1969 album 3 Compositions of New
Jazz and also collaborated with a dazzling cast of fellow visionaries including
Muhal Richard Abrams, Richard Davis and Steve McCall. Early in his career, Smith developed
Ankhrasmation, a radically original musical language that remains the
philosophical foundation of his oeuvre. Smith cemented his reputation as a
profound musical thinker with the 1973 treatise “Notes (8 pieces) source a new
world music: creative music.” Since the
early 1970s, he has performed and recorded mainly with his own groups. He
currently leads five principal ensembles: Mbira, a trio with pipa player Min
Xiao-Fen and drummer Pheeroan akLaff; the Golden Quartet, his highly celebrated
group that now includes Anthony Davis, John Lindberg and akLaff; and three
larger ensembles: Organic, which utilizes instrumentation consisting primarily
of electric string instruments including four guitarists; the Silver Orchestra;
and TUMO, a new improvising orchestra featuring Smith with some of the leading
performers from the Nordic region. He has released more than 50 albums as a
leader on labels including ECM, Moers, Black Saint, Tzadik, Pi Recordings, TUM,
Leo and Cuneiform. When Tzadik released
a boxed set of his self-released early work in 2004, The Kabell Years 1971-79,
All About Jazz noted that “having all this material in one spot establishes
Wadada Leo Smith as a major musical force and verifies his important and
lasting influence on succeeding generations.”
A 2013
Pulitzer finalist, Smith was also DownBeat Magazine’s 2013 “Composer of the
Year” and the Jazz Journalist Association’s 2013 Musician of the Year and
Trumpeter of the Year. In 2014 DownBeat magazine named him “One of the 80
Coolest Things in Jazz Today,” citing his “magisterial instrumental voice, his
inspirational leadership, and his command of classical, jazz and blues forms to
remind us of what’s gone down and what’s still happening.” Most recently, he was commissioned by the
Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra to write a new piece titled "Solidarity for
orchestra and quartet" which premiered to great acclaim on November 14,
2014 in Wroclaw Poland. His 2014 CD The
Great Lakes Suites earned broad critical acclaim and won second place in NPR
Music’s 2014 Jazz Critics Poll.
Smith
has been awarded grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, Chamber Music
America with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Meet the
Composer/Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, the FONT (Festival
of New Trumpet Music) Award of Recognition, Southwest Chamber Music funded by
the James Irvine Foundation and the Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation,
the MAP Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others.
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