Ches Smith's "Laugh Ash"

Goddamn, this sounds like a masterpiece. But wait a minute, let me back up...

Since signing with Pyroclastic a couple of years ago, drummer-percussionist-composer Ches Smith has released an exploration of Haitian Vodou music (Path of Seven Colors) and a meeting of his current trio with guitarist Bill Frisell (Interpret It Well) -- while staying busy as a side musician with the likes of John Zorn, Tim Berne, Marc Ribot, and Trevor Dunn. 

When I reviewed Smith's Finally Out of My Hands (with his band These Arches -- which might have been the first place I heard Mary Halvorson) back in 2010, I commented on the diverse array of influences from which he drew. That eclecticism remains a hallmark of Smith's work as a composer, but on his new album, Laugh Ash, echoes of precursors as disparate as Steve Reich, Haitian Vodou, Beethoven string quartets, and rappers Kool Keith, Motion Man, and E-40 are synthesized seamlessly into a music that sounds bracingly fresh and of the moment. Smith's tonal and textural palette here includes three strings (violin-viola-cello), four winds (flute-clarinet-tenor sax-trumpet), a vocalist, and a mixture of live instruments and electronically generated sounds for bass and percussion. 

Most of the compositions are built around complex, cyclical rhythm patterns that build tension and provide moments of surprise when juxtaposed with soaring vocal melodies (as in the opening first single, "Minimalism") or tightly scripted chamber music ("Sweatered Webs (Hey Mom)"). When James Brandon Lewis rips a harmolodic tenor solo against a bass ostinato that's a distant cousin of the one from Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines" (played by the ever inventive Shahzad Ismaily), it evokes the adventuresome spirit of late '70s NYC. (Lewis's own For Mahalia, With Love showed up on a lot of end-of-2023 lists, as did Mendoza Hoffs Revels' Echolocation, which featured both Lewis and Smith.)

Vocalist Shara Lunon's sung or declaimed lyrics add another layer of referents to the sonic stew (as on the impressionistic tone poem "Winter Sprung"). The most purely hip-hop moment here is "The Most Fucked," powered by samples and drum machines, while "Disco Inferred" pulsates with nervous energy, providing a platform for Oscar Noriega's clarinet, the iconoclastic experimentalist Nate Wooley's trumpet, and the string trio to make successive statements. "Unyielding Daydream Welding" and "Exit Shivers" close the program on a more somber, reflective note. 

Ches Smith has reached a point in his creative odyssey where he can incorporate all of his musical knowledge and experiences into his expression. Producer David Breskin has facilitated Smith's journey in the same way he did for Ronald Shannon Jackson, Nels Cline, Mary Halvorson, and Kris Davis before him. Laugh Ash is a milestone in Smith's discography, and marks him as a leader of consequence in this decade's creative music.