Tum Records
Over the past year, I’ve delved into the most significant body of work for string quartet ever written by a composer whose primary identity with the public is as a jazz musician. Here’s how to begin your own encounter with important facets of the work of an artist whose name you ought to know.
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If you are not familiar with Wadada Leo Smith as an artist or as a thinker, you could start with The Chicago Symphonies and know that you are engaging with some of his finest work.
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The trio shares Cecil Taylor’s love of rational freedom and adventure, but it doesn’t try to reproduce the pianist’s rip-roaring intensity.
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It is enormous fun to hear how this group of veterans try to think in new ways — as they do throughout this engaging release.
Read MoreThat’s why Wadada Leo Smith’s musical visions are so miraculous: there’s an impression of drift, yet they rarely meander.
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Music Perspective: The Context of Wadada Leo Smith’s 12 String Quartets
Wadada Leo Smith is among the most prolific composers of string quartets in the modern era, the only Black composer to have written so many, and one of the most adventurous writers of quartets in terms of his notation system and the distinctiveness of his musical language.
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