New Dreams, New Masters

A Pulitzer finalist, Doris Duke Artist Award winner, and Guggenheim fellow, Wadada Leo Smith, the son of an early Delta blues guitarist, is a national treasure.  After working as an integral member of Anthony Braxton’s early ensembles, Smith applied his unique trumpet tone, somewhere between the moan of a blues guitar and the ascendance of the human voice, to his debut album, Creative Music - 1. He has since composed for and improvised with ensembles of almost every imaginable size, from small bands to orchestras, and developed his own beautiful and specific system of graphic notation, dubbed Ankhrasmation, to the point that the scores have themselves become the stuff of museum installations. 

A fan of monolithic, focused works, Smith released Ten Freedom Summers, a four-disc ode to the Civil Rights movement, as well as the Yo, Miles! series of LPs, both a tribute to and a reinterpretation of songs from Miles Davis' electric phase. With America’s National Parks, Smith composed a suite inspired by the scenic splendor, the historic legacy, and the political controversies associated with the country’s public landscapes. 

The spark for the project came from Ken Burns’ 12-hour documentary series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.  "The idea that Ken Burns explored in that documentary was that the grandeur of nature was like a religion or a cathedral," Smith said. "I reject that image because the natural phenomenon in creation, just like man and stars and light and water, is all one thing, just a diffusion of energy. My focus is on the spiritual and psychological dimensions of the idea of setting aside reserves for common property of the American citizens." 

The 28-page score for America’s National Parks was composed for his Golden Quintet. Pianist Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Pheeroan akLaff are joined by cellist Ashley Walters, affording the composer and bandleader new melodic and coloristic possibilities. "The cello as a lead voice with the trumpet is magnificent," Smith says, "but when you look at the possibilities for melodic formation with the trumpet, the cello, the piano and the bass, that’s paradise for a composer and for a performer." 

While these preserved landscapes offer the inspiration of powerful natural beauty, Smith’s always open-minded view of the world leads him to find that same inspiration wherever he is. "Every concrete house is from nature," he says. "Every plastic airplane that flies 300 people across the ocean comes out of nature. Every air conditioner conditions a natural piece of air. I think that the human being is constantly enfolded in organic nature and constructed nature, so I’m constantly inspired, inside the house or outside the house."

At this year's Big Ears Festival, Smith will play two sets: one titled Reflections and Meditations on Monk, a tribute to Thelonious, and the other a performance of his LP Divine Love, a 1978 set that had the now-departed trumpeters Kenny Wheeler and Lester Bowie joining Smith on trumpet.