TUM Records Celebrates Wadada Leo Smith’s 80th Birthday Year!
Trumpet was recorded over one beautiful summer week in July 2016 at St. Mary’s Church in the town of Pohja, on the Southern Coast of Finland. The church was built between the years 1460 and 1480 and remains close to its original condition, being today used in much the same way as it was some 550 years ago as a meeting place for its parishioners.
Trumpet features fourteen new compositions by Wadada Leo Smith, including four extended works. As a whole, Trumpet represents a totally unique journey into the possibilities of the trumpet as a solo instrument and the immersive, almost meditative power of Smith’s extended solo performance.
Trumpet also represents a culmination so far of Smith’s recorded solo trumpet work that has comprised a total of six albums prior to Trumpet. That legacy begins with his very first album as a leader, Creative Music – 1: Six Solo Improvisations, in 1971 and includes most recently his dedication to Thelonious Monk, Solo: Reflections and Meditations on Monk, from 2015.
Photo by Petri Haussila
“I recorded Trumpet in a small town one hour west of Helsinki, Finland, creating the music in a fifteenth century stone church,” recalls Wadada Leo Smith. “ The acoustics were perfect for the trumpet sound. The recording took place over four days during the summer. It was a beautiful moment for creating art.”
“The trumpet is a metallic vehicle and, because of its architectural design, it has the potentiality of offering the music creator the ability to create a pure and sometimes unimaginably beautiful music,” says Smith of his chosen instrument. “ That music of the trumpeter is heard in this world and across space. It is an instrument made for the dreamer of dreams, the one who can authenticate the dream into reality.”
The cover art features a new series of Wadada Leo Smith’s Ankhrasmation Symbol Language Art Scores: “Wadada Playing Red Trumpet,” “Wadada Playing Gold Trumpet,” “Wadada Playing Purple Trumpet” and “Wadada Playing Silver Trumpet.” Many of his previous art scores have been exhibited at major American museums.
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Sacred Ceremonies represents a meeting of three true giants of contemporary creative music. On this three-CD boxed set, Wadada Leo Smith joins forces with the barrier-breaking electric bassist Bill Laswell and the late, great master drummer Milford Graves in three separate one-day sessions. The boxed set comprises a duo CD featuring Smith and Graves, a duo CD featuring Smith and Laswell and a trio CD featuring Smith, Laswell and Graves.
Sacred Ceremonies brings together representatives of three distinct and highly influential movements in contemporary creative music, convening in a once-in-a-lifetime meeting of wholly singular minds. Wadada Leo Smith was a member of the first generation of composers and musicians to come out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago in the 1960s whereas Milford Graves was an important proponent of the “new music” or “free jazz” movement in New York City during the same decade. Bill Laswell in turn was an integral part of the Downtown scene in New York City in the 1970s. From those early days, they have each long since forged a totally unique personal approach to making music and have now together created a collection of music that transcends any easily definable influences.
Each of the three CDs of Sacred Ceremonies includes compositions by Wadada Leo Smith as well as compositions created collectively in the studio. Sacred Ceremonies is dedicated to the memory of Milford Graves, who passed away in early 2021 of amyloid cardiomyopathy, an aggressive form of heart disease, first diagnosed in 2018.
photo by R.I. Sutherland-Cohen
“Bill and I had the great pleasure of recording this special duet/trio project with Milford Graves and dedicate this music to him,” says Wadada Leo Smith. “Milford was one of the greatest master drummers of our times, who reshaped the way rhythms are played on the drum-set. We will miss him and so will the world.” Sacred Ceremonies was recorded over three separate one-day sessions at Bill Laswell’s studio in West Orange, New Jersey, in 2015 and 2016. As Bill Laswell and Milford Graves had already previously recorded a duo album at the studio in West Orange (Space / Time・Redemption, TUM CD 040, in 2013), Sacred Ceremonies can be seen to complete a full cycle of duo and trio music created by Smith, Laswell and Graves
2021 CONCERTS AND RESIDENCIES
Wadada’s Winter from Four Symphonies, world premiere
The Ithaca College’s Percussion Ensemble’s performance of Winter will also be re-broadcast as part of the Necessary Noise Festival in New Jersey in August
A five-week residency focusing on Winter from Four Symphonies for ensemble
May 3 – 11:30 a.m. – Symphony no. 2 Winter, from Four Symphonies
presented by the New School’s MM Performer-Composer Ensemble
Elson Lecture and performance of a new work featuring Wadada, Vijay Iyer and Andrew Cyrille
Wadada’s Reflections and Meditations on Monk Project with video artist Jesse Gilbert
December 18, 2021 – Wadada’s 80th Birthday
Streaming concert featuring Duet performances. More information TBA