Wadada Leo Smith's "The Emerald Duets" and "String Quartets Nos. 1-12"

Before Anthony Braxton broke the code to arts funding and had a foundation with employees to do the grunt work for him, he was not above using student ensembles or releasing incomplete or suboptimal performances as long as the essence of his composed work was documented. No more. The ascendancy of AACM luminaries Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, and today's subject, the august trumpeter-composer Wadada Leo Smith, to academia changed the political economy of creative music for the better.

European record labels have also played a big part in documenting 21st century creative music. For example, the Finnish label TUM Records has released a significant chunk of output from Smith's late career surge of creativity, including The Great Lakes Suites (2014), Najwa (2017), and Rosa Parks: Pure Love (2019). To celebrate the composer's 80th anniversary, the label undertook the monumental release of six albums -- the final two of which are to be considered here -- totaling 23 CDs. (Comparisons being odious, FMP's Cecil Taylor in Berlin was "only" 11 CDs. I reviewed the earlier TUM releases here and here.)

The Emerald Duets pairs Smith with four different and highly individuated drummers over five discs. Smith recorded with Han Bennink in Amsterdam in 2014 and with Jack DeJohnette, Andrew Cyrille, and Pheeroan akLaff during 2019 and 2020, including versions of the politically-themed piece "The Patriot Act: Unconstitutional and a Force that Destroys Democracy" with each of the three American drummers. (A future historian could examine the titles of Smith's compositions and get useful pointers to what was going on in the world during the composer's times.)

The pure sound of Smith's trumpet synthesizes all the sound worlds that formed him -- the blues, Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, Miles Davis -- with a plaintive cry that resounds with the sorrow and transcendent joy of being human in this historical moment. His muted flurries will make your heart beat faster; his long tones can make you weep. On The Emerald Duets, Smith is also heard on piano, expanding the timbral palette of the collaborations.

The youngest of the four drummers, akLaff is probably best known for his work with Oliver Lake and Henry Threadgill, as well as his collaborations with Smith (including the masterwork Ten Freedom Summers). His vibrant playing on these duets is marked by a depth of listening and constant feeling of forward motion -- what Vijay Iyer refers to in his liner notes as "the sense of the processional." 

Cyrille was Cecil Taylor's drummer from his classic 1966 Blue Note LPs to his epic 1973 Town Hall concert (recently released digitally in its entirety by Oblivion). More recently, he's released three albums for ECM (including Lebroba with Smith and Bill Frisell), and earlier this year, 2 Blues for Cecil with William Parker and Enrico Rava for TUM. Cyrille has a lighter touch than the other drummers here, owing as much to his Haitian origins as to his early exemplars Philly Joe Jones and Max Roach. His sensitive backing brings forth some of Smith's most ruminative playing.

While most of The Emerald Duets consists of Smith compositions, six of the nine pieces with Bennink are spontaneous duo compositions. The Dutch master percussionist was a founding participant in the European free improvisation scene, and has a reputation as a whimsical, madcap performer, but here, his grounding in pre-bebop jazz styles and comfort with silence and space open the door to a different kind of dialogue.

Before attaining fame with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis, and himself becoming one of the great bandleaders of the '70s and '80s, DeJohnette played with Smith in early AACM days. He's since played in the trumpeter's Golden Quartet and Great Lakes Quartet, and they dueted together on 2008's America. Like Smith, he's also a pianist, and as they intertwine piano and trumpet, trumpet and drums, drums and piano, and on one piece, acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes, what best defines their interaction here is the way both men think like composers.

While Smith has featured his string quartet writing in major 21st century works such as Ten Freedom Summers, Occupy the World, and Rosa Parks: Pure Love, his work with the medium dates back to 1965. Recorded in 2015 and 2020, String Quartets Nos. 1-12 include works from three periods: four quartets each from 1965-2001, 2005-2011, and 1987-2009. The basic ensemble heard on these recordings, RedKoral Quartet -- first violinist Shalini Vijayan, second violinist Mona Tian, violist Andrew McIntosh, and cellist Ashley Walters -- coalesced around Smith during his tenure on the faculty at CalArts from 1994 to 2013, and appeared on the recorded Ten Freedom Summers and Rosa Parks. 

By design, the quartets have programmatic links to what Smith refers to as the "physiological and cultural reality" of the African-American experience. String Quartet No. 1's four movements, for example, are dedicated to African-American composers, invoking their inspiration with chords struck like bold shafts of light, churning dissonances, and shuddering resolutions, culminating in Movement 4's lengthy, pensive exposition. String Quartet No. 2 features varied textures using attacks ranging from gliding glissandos to pointillistic pizzicatos and abrasive double stops. The long tones at the end of the piece provide a feeling of rest like the "static sound" sections of Braxton's Composition No. 96. The ethereal, haunting String Quartet No. 3 is the least literal (e.g., gospel music referential) evocation imaginable of the Black church. 

Several of the pieces feature guest performers. On three of String Quartet No. 4's five moody, harmonically dense movements, RedKoral Quartet is joined by harpist Alison Bjorkedahl. String Quartet No. 5 "In the Diaspora -- Earthquakes and Sunrise Missions (Dedicated to Haki R. Madhubuti)" carries the unquiet spirit of the poet who wrote (in "Gwendolyn Brooks: America in the Wintertime"), "america / if you see me as your enemy / you have no / friends." On String Quartet No. 6, where Lorenz Gamma appears in place of Tian on second violin, the quartet is augmented by Smith, pianist Anthony Davis (a distinguished composer himself -- his opera Malcolm X is currently undergoing revival -- whose association with Smith dates back to the '70s), and percussionist Lynn Vartan. The added musicians provide color and contrast to the basic quartet's evocation of an Islamic holy city. 

Guitarist Stuart Fox sets the stage for String Quartet No. 7's remembrance of the composer and flautist Dorothy Ann Stone, while on String Quartet No. 8, Smith and vocalist Thomas Buckner juxtapose humanity with the strings' abstraction on a dedication to a prickly pear. String Quartet No. 9's two movements pay tribute to two very different women of song -- Ma Rainey and Marian Anderson; the second is particularly strong and striking. 

String Quartet No. 10 "Angela Davis: Into the Morning Sunlight" pays powerful and dramatic homage to the activist and academic. The piece de resistance here is String Quartet No. 11, wherein Smith demonstrates his mastery of the form over nine movements that nearly fill two discs, paying tribute to progenitors both familial and artistic. Last but not least, String Quartet No. 12 is performed by the four violas of McIntosh, Gamma, Linnea Powell, and Adrienne Pope. 

TUM's celebration of Wadada Leo Smith's 80th year is an event of the season, the year, aw hell, the decade itself. And String Quartets Nos. 1-12 is the jewel in the crown.