"Most people would never realize that I am closer to
Thelonious Monk than to any other artist," says Smith. "What connects
us is a vision of composition and its forms, music psychology, and our
articulation of the ensemble as a trashing field for new information."
From the time he listened to the early masters of modern jazz as a teenager,
Smith felt that "It was Monk, his ideas of a band and composition, that
were the closest to what I dreamed of being as an artist. His history of
composition and his knowledge of how to use sound were a prime motivator,
really, for me wanting to be a composer. I would go back and forth between him
and Duke Ellington on this, but Monk had the upper hand in the end."
Smith´s fascination with Monk´s solo recordings began more
than five decades ago, when he purchased the recording Thelonious Monk Alone In
San Francisco. "The essence of Monk is, I believe, in his solo
performances"says Smith. "All those pieces, the solo music, follow
the primary formula of the compositions, but they all stray, they all lead to
expansions and further explorations - allowing the compositions to grow and
become renewed each time he plays them. The way in which I play Monk´s melodies
on this recording, they are all personal: they are not based on chord
progressions, they evolve essentially by proportion - long notes, short notes.
Each of them is played, they move, in a way in which I can celebrate his
melody, but seen through my expression of it."
In addition to four classic Monk compositions, "Ruby,
My Dear," "Reflections," "Crepuscule With Nellie" and
"'Round Midnight," the album includes four new compositions by Smith
inspired by Monk and his personal history - whether real, imagined or dreamed.
Together, the pieces form a unique collection wherein the two composers seem to
communicate with each other through Smith´s solo performances.
Smith´s first recording as a leader was also a solo album
(Creative Music-1 in 1971). Since that time, he has continued to perform solo
concerts and record additional solo albums (Solo Music/Ahkreanvention in 1979,
Kulture Jazz in 1992 and Red Sulphur Sky in 2001). Solo: Reflections And
Meditations On Monk is, however, Smith´s first solo recording that includes
another composer´s music. Smith has also begun performing Monk´s compositions
live for the first time.
Wadada Leo Smith (b. 1941), who was part of the first
generation of musicians to come out of Chicago´s Association for the
Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), has established himself as one of the
leading composers and performers of creative contemporary music. In the late
1960s, Smith formed the Creative Construction Company together with saxophonist
Anthony Braxton and violinist Leroy Jenkins and, since the early 1970s, he has
mostly led his own groups, which currently include the Golden Quartet, the
Great Lakes Quartet, Mbira, Organicand the SilverOrchestra, among others. In
2012, Smith released his most extensive recording to date, Ten Freedom Summers,
a four-CD collection which was one of three finalists for Pulitzer Prize in
Music in 2013. In 2013, he released Occupy The World (TUM CD 037-2), a two-CD
recording of six extended compositions performed by Smith with TUMO, a
22-member improvising orchestra. The Great Lakes Suites (TUM CD 041-2, a
double-CD with Henry Threadgill, John Lindberg and Jack DeJohnette) was broadly
hailed as one of the top albums of the year in 2014 as was the duo recording
with bassist John Lindberg, Celestial Weather (TUM CD 046), in 2015. In 2017,
Smith received awards for Jazz Artist of the Year, Jazz Album of the Year (for
America´s National Parks) and Trumpeter of the Year in DownBeat´s 65th Annual
Critics Poll and was named Music
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