Things we like: Wadada Leo Smith, Milford Graves, Bill Laswell

In a piece anthologized in Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein, John Corbett recounts the story of a solo concert by the master drummer Milford Graves that a friend of his witnessed. Corbett's friend recalled that Graves had a volunteer from the audience come onstage and verify his pulse before he stopped it, then somehow managed to create asynchronous pulses in his left and right arms. Corbett goes on to quote saxophonist John Tchicai, who said that when he was playing with Graves in the New York Art Quartet, there was a bassist who was so unnerved by Graves' non-metric drumming that he refused to play with the group. 

After playing with '60s free jazz innovators like Albert Ayler, Giuseppi Logan, Don Pullen (their legendary and elusive duets were reissued last year), and Sonny Sharrock, Graves spent 39 years on the faculty of Bennington College in Vermont. He was the subject of a worthwhile documentary, Milford Graves Full Mantis, released in 2018. It's a sad irony that Graves, who spent decades studying the human heartbeat with an eye toward harnessing the healing potential of music, died on February 21 this year from congestive heart failure brought on by amyloid cardiomyopathy (also known as "stiff heart syndrome"). (As a heart patient myself, I find it of interest that Graves saw similarities between cardiac arrhythmias and Afro-Cuban drum patterns. He possessed the kind of intelligence that makes connections others miss.)

The Finnish TUM Records label recently released Sacred Ceremonies, a three CD set of duets and trios, dedicated to Graves' memory and capturing him in performance with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and bassist Bill Laswell. It's a meeting of the minds between veterans of the '60s and '80s New York scenes and Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) who are each strong creative forces in their own right.

After an early immersion in the blues, and Army service, the Mississippi-born Smith first came to prominence alongside AACM standard bearers Anthony Braxton and Leroy Jenkins. He had his own sojourn in academia -- a decade in Connecticut at the University of New Haven, and two more at California Institute of the Arts, with intervals in upstate New York at the Creative Music Studio and Bard College in between -- during which he continued his creative work, running his own record label, composing, leading his own groups, and performing in a variety of contexts. Smith's composition came to the fore with the 2012 release of Ten Freedom Summers, a multi-ensemble work inspired by the Civil Rights movement and composed over three decades, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Since his retirement from academia in 2013, his pace of creative activity has accelerated.

After making his way to New York via Detroit, Laswell played in bands (Material, Massacre, and Last Exit among them) that variously fused rock, electronics, jazz, funk, dub reggae, and "world music," and produced scores of records, including Herbie Hancock's unlikely 1983 hit "Rockit" and Sonny Sharrock's glorious 1991 swan song Ask the Ages. (For years, my preferred way to experience electric Miles Davis was Laswell's 1998 remix album Panthalassa.) Laswell and Graves dueted for TUM on 2014's Space/Time Redemption, which could be seen as a precursor to the 2015-2016 sessions that produced Sacred Ceremonies.

Smith's playing is always full of spontaneous invention that's responsive to his environment, including his partners. His duets with the other musicians have different vibes, based on his collaborators' characteristics. The Laswell duets are more spacious and atmospheric, swimming in Laswell's sea of electronic effects, until the bassist introduces something like funk to the proceedings on "Minnie Riperton - The Chicago Bronzeville Master Blaster," the closing selection on their duo disc. Listening to the trumpeter improvise with Graves, one gets the impression that the drummer's deep sound is directing and channeling the flow of their conversation -- even when the first two pieces they essay are Smith compositions. They strike sparks on the extemporaneous "Celebration Rhythms," and by "Poetic Sonics" are burning with abandon.

The trio disc sees Graves still driving the interaction, with Laswell responding to the drummer's propulsive authority, creating a burbling groove for Smith to invent over. Absent the high-tuned snare and cymbals of a typical trap set player, Graves' presentation has the regal presence of an African drummer -- or a whole village of them. A singular talent with no apparent heirs. Whether playing a muted or open horn, Smith sounds like the end of a line of trumpet explorers that included Miles, Don Cherry, and Lester Bowie -- more concerned with expression than technique (although he gets a beautifully burnished tone from his horn). 

That tone is showcased on Trumpet, three CDs' worth of solo performances Smith recorded over four days in a 550 year old stone church during the summer of 2016 and released by TUM as part of its celebration of the artist's 80th birthday this year. It's his seventh such release (not counting previously unreleased solo material that appeared on Tzadik's Kabell Years 1971-1979 box set). The fourteen pieces here, including four extended compositions, take their inspiration from various influences and associates of Smith's, Kurosawa's film Rashomon, the purifying therapeutic treatment known as sauna, political and cultural figures like Malik al-Shabazz (aka Malcolm X) and James Baldwin, figures from Sufi spirituality, and ultimately, "Family -- A Contemplation of Love." The solitary sounds, created in sacred space, serve as a suitable accompaniment to moments of contemplation and reflection. Smith's use of negative space in his inventions enhances their impact.

The box set format TUM used for these releases -- like the recently reviewed Ches Smith set on Pyroclastic -- is a good way of adding value to CDs. For those of us still enamored of "the romance of the artifact," having quality artwork, photos, and legible liner notes makes the shiny silver discs a more engaging way to experience music than mere downloads.