On October 3, 2025, Intakt Records will release Angel Falls, a spellbinding duo album from pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. It’s the first time these two towering figures have recorded alone together, and yet, the music feels as if it’s the result of a lifetime of shared journeys.
Their connection didn’t happen overnight. It began in 2017 in a downtown Manhattan performance space, at a concert organized by John Zorn. Courvoisier, the Swiss-born pianist known for her fearless improvisations and meticulous ear for detail, took the stage alongside Smith, the Mississippi-born trumpet legend whose “Creative Music” ethos has shaped the course of modern jazz and avant-garde composition.
That night left a lasting impression. As Courvoisier recalls, “Right after the concert he asked for my number, and a couple of months later, we did a trio recording with Marcus Gilmore in New Haven.” That session never saw an official release, but it sparked a series of collaborations—varied, adventurous, and never predictable. Over the years, they found themselves together in trios, large ensembles, and even a two-piano project within one of Smith’s own groups. Each encounter deepened their musical rapport.
It was Smith’s fondness for the piano duo format that eventually brought the idea of Angel Falls to the table. He’s no stranger to the setting, having recorded memorable partnerships with Vijay Iyer, John Tilbury, Angelica Sanchez, and Amina Claudine Myers. But when Courvoisier suggested they work without written charts, the stage was set for something uniquely alive.
The recording itself was almost shockingly immediate. In just two hours, they played straight through the eight pieces in the order they appear on the album—no edits, no overdubs. By late afternoon, the entire record was recorded, mixed, and finished. This directness is audible in every note: the music breathes with a sense of risk, trust, and discovery.
Listening to Angel Falls is like eavesdropping on a conversation in a language only the two of them speak. Smith’s trumpet can be regal and declarative one moment, whisper-soft the next, its tones sometimes burnished by a mute, sometimes pure and open. Courvoisier answers with a piano vocabulary that stretches from crystalline classical clarity to inside-the-piano explorations, plucking and preparing strings on the fly.
There’s no traditional comping here, no soloist-accompanist dynamic. Instead, the music unfolds like an intricate dance—alternately melodic and abstract, open and tightly interwoven, playful and solemn.
The album’s title track references Angel Falls in Venezuela, the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world. For Courvoisier, the imagery resonates both with the power of nature and the poetic vision of “an angel falling down.” The other track titles, chosen together after playback, share a similar elemental quality, reflecting the organic, unforced nature of the session.
For Smith, this collaboration is another chapter in a career defined by integrity, spiritual resonance, and creative courage. Born in Leland, Mississippi, in 1941, his roots in Delta blues and African American musical traditions have always informed his work, even as he’s pushed the boundaries of form and genre. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Guggenheim Fellow, Doris Duke Artist, and Vision Festival Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Smith’s body of work spans chamber music, large-scale orchestral pieces, and intimate improvisations like those on Angel Falls.
Courvoisier’s journey is equally compelling. A winner of the Swiss Grand Prix and the 2025 American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Award, she’s spent over two decades in New York City forging a career that defies easy categorization. She moves fluidly between European chamber traditions and the improvisatory spirit of the avant-jazz scene, whether reimagining Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, leading her acclaimed trio, or partnering with innovators like guitarist Mary Halvorson.
When Courvoisier speaks about her approach, you can sense the childlike curiosity that still fuels her art. “If I hear a sound in my head, which needs to be not tempered or I want something more pecky, I will do an instant preparation,” she explains. This habit goes back to her youth in Switzerland, when she would experiment with the family piano while her parents were out, imitating radio sounds and trying any household object she could find to change the instrument’s tone.
That spirit of exploration is alive and well in Angel Falls. “With Wadada I feel like we are creating in the moment and I feel something very joyful,” she says. “We’re like kids discovering things.”
And that’s perhaps the essence of this record: two seasoned masters approaching the music with the openness and wonder of beginners, unburdened by expectations, free to follow the sound wherever it might lead. The result is a work that feels at once fleeting and timeless—an unrepeatable conversation caught on record, and a testament to the magic that can happen when two musical worlds meet.
