Wadada Leo Smith | |
|---|---|
 Photo by Tom Beetz | |
| Background information | |
| Born | December 18, 1941 Leland, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupations |
|
| Instrument | Trumpet |
| Website | www |
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith (born December 18, 1941) [1] is an American trumpeter and composer, working primarily in the field of creative music. [2] He was one of three finalists for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Ten Freedom Summers , released on May 22, 2012. [3]
Smith was born in Leland, Mississippi, United States. [1] He started out playing drums, mellophone, and French horn before he settled on the trumpet. He played in various R&B groups and, by 1967, became a member of the AACM and co-founded the Creative Construction Company, a trio with Leroy Jenkins and Anthony Braxton. [1] In 1971, Smith formed his own label, Kabell. [1] He also formed another band, the New Dalta Ahkri, with members including Henry Threadgill, Anthony Davis and Oliver Lake. [1]
In the 1970s, Smith studied ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. He played again with Anthony Braxton, as well as recording with Derek Bailey's Company. [1] In the mid-1980s, Smith became Rastafarian and began using the name Wadada. [1] In 1993, he began teaching at Cal Arts, [2] a position he held until 2014. In addition to trumpet and flugelhorn, Smith plays several world music instruments, including the koto, kalimba, and atenteben (Ghanaian bamboo flute). He has also taught courses in instrument making. His compositions often use a graphic notation system he calls "Ankhrasmation", which he developed in 1970. [1]
In 1998, Smith and guitarist Henry Kaiser released Yo, Miles!, a tribute to Miles Davis's then-lesser-known 1970s electric period. [2] On this album, Smith, Kaiser and a large cast of musicians recorded cover versions and original compositions inspired by Miles's electric music. [2] The follow-ups Sky Garden (released by Cuneiform in 2004) and Upriver (released in 2005) were recorded with a different cast of musicians. [2] Both line-ups featured Michael Manring on bass.
Smith's Golden Quartet (with which he has released several albums) originally featured Jack DeJohnette on drums, Anthony Davis on keyboards, and Malachi Favors on bass. [2] After several iterations, the Golden Quartet now features Pheeroan akLaff on drums, John Lindberg on bass, and Davis on piano. [2]
During the 2000s, Smith recorded albums for John Zorn's label Tzadik, as well as Pi Recordings. In 2008, he and his Golden Quartet released a DVD entitled Freedom Now. [2]
Smith has lived in New Haven, Connecticut for many years, a city where he helped create a prominent culture for creative music. [4]
With Muhal Richard Abrams
With Marion Brown
With Anthony Braxton
With Creative Construction Company
With Andrew Cyrille
With Leroy Jenkins
With Henry Kaiser
With Bill Laswell
With Frank Lowe
With Maurice McIntyre
With Roscoe Mitchell
With Matthew Shipp
With Spring Heel Jack
With John Zorn
Roscoe Mitchell is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". The Penguin Guide to Jazz described him as "one of the key figures" in avant-garde jazz; All About Jazz stated in 2004 that he had been "at the forefront of modern music" for more than 35 years. Critic Jon Pareles in The New York Times has mentioned that Mitchell "qualifies as an iconoclast". In addition to his own work as a bandleader, Mitchell is known for cofounding the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Andrew Charles Cyrille is an American avant-garde jazz drummer. Throughout his career, he has performed both as a leader and a sideman in the bands of Walt Dickerson and Cecil Taylor, among others. AllMusic biographer Chris Kelsey wrote: "Few free-jazz drummers play with a tenth of Cyrille's grace and authority. His energy is unflagging, his power absolute, tempered only by an ever-present sense of propriety."
Anthony Davis is an American pianist and composer. He incorporates several styles including jazz, rhythm 'n' blues, gospel, non-Western, African, European classical, Indonesian gamelan, and experimental music. He has played with several groups and is also a professor of music at the University of California, San Diego.
Evan Shaw Parker is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation.
Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC was a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. from the 1950s onwards.
George Emanuel Lewis is an American composer, performer, and scholar of experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, when he joined the organization at the age of 19. He is renowned for his work as an improvising trombonist and considered a pioneer of computer music, which he began pursuing in the late 1970s; in the 1980s he created Voyager, an improvising software he has used in interactive performances. Lewis's many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music received the American Book Award. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology at Columbia University.
Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer, known as an idiosyncratic soloist, a sideman, an ethnomusicologist, and a film score composer. Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "second generation" of American free improvisers. He is married to Canadian artist Brandy Gale. He is the son of Henry J. Kaiser Jr. and the grandson of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.
Marilyn Crispell is an American jazz pianist and composer. Scott Yanow described her as "a powerful player... who has her own way of using space... She is near the top of her field." Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote: "Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano... She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz." In addition to her own extensive work as a soloist or bandleader, Crispell is also known as a longtime member of saxophonist Anthony Braxton's quartet in the 1980s and '90s.
Discography for jazz saxophonist Anthony Braxton.
John Lindberg is an American jazz double-bassist.
Pheeroan akLaff is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. He began playing in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan and Ann Arbor, with R & B keyboardist Travis Biggs, funk keyboardist Nimrod “The Grinder” Lumpkin, The Ebony Set and The Last Days. He moved to New Haven, Connecticut, and formed a group with saxophonist/flautist/percussionist Dwight Andrews. He debuted with saxophonist Bill Barron in 1975, followed by a tenure in Leo Smith's ‘New Dalta Ahkri’ (1977-1979).
Joe Fonda is an American jazz bassist.
Hugh Ragin is an American jazz trumpeter.
Creative Music - 1 is the first recording as a leader by American jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, which was released in 1972 on his own, privately pressed label Kabell. Subtitled "Six Solo Improvisations", the album featured Smith solo using trumpet, flugelhorn and various drums, gongs, bells, and home made percussion. It was reissued in 2004 as part of the four-CD box Kabell Years: 1971-1979, released by John Zorn's imprint Tzadik Records.
Reflectativity is the second album by American jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and the debut with the ensemble New Dalta Ahkri, which was recorded live at The Educational Center for the Arts, New Haven, and released in 1975 on his own Kabell label.
Brandon K. Ross is an American jazz guitarist. He was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The Year of the Elephant is the twenty-fifth studio album by American jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith which was recorded in 2002 and released on Pi Recordings. It was the second recording by his Golden Quartet featuring pianist Anthony Davis, bassist Malachi Favors and drummer Jack DeJohnette.
Tabligh is an album by American jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith which was recorded live at the CalArts Creative Music Festival in 2005 and released on Cuneiform. It was the third recording by his Golden Quartet with a new electro-acoustic lineup featuring pianist Vijay Iyer, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson.
America is an album by American jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and drummer Jack DeJohnette which was recorded in 2008 and released on Tzadik Records. It was their first duo recording, a collaboration originally proposed to ECM in 1979 and rejected.
Kabell Years: 1971–1979 is a four-CD box set released on Tzadik Records compiling American jazz trumpeter/composer/inmproviser Wadada Leo Smith's earliest albums which were originally released on his own, privately pressed label Kabell along with additional previously unissued material from the same era. The set includes the previously released material from Creative Music - 1, Reflectativity, Song of Humanity and Solo Music: Ahkreanvention.
Finalists: Pulitzer Prize for Music (2011–2020) | ||
|---|---|---|
|  | |
| ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
