Wadada Leo Smith: The Emerald Duets album review — stark contrasts

The Finnish label TUM completes its epic year-long celebration of trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith’s 80th birthday with two demanding but immensely satisfying box sets. The seven-CD String Quartets Nos 1-12, recorded in 2015 and 2020, adds a sprinkling of guests to the chamber jazz form and traces the evolution of his composing style — he began writing String Quartet No 1 in 1965 with hints of Bartók, though even then his aesthetic core stood out. The Emerald Duets, a five-CD collection, finds the brassy trumpet slabs, jaunty melodic trills and breathy muted flutters honed into fine art.

It is the latter which showcases the strong moods, stark contrasts and innate sense of form which Smith is known for. The first disc, Litanies, Prayers and Meditations, features drummer Pheeroan akLaff, whose sensitivity and sense of space made Smith’s Pulitzer-nominated album Ten Freedom Summers such an engaging set. The opening title, “The Prayer (For Keith Jarrett)”, harnesses that album’s pensive mood and the trumpeter’s tonal strength and imaginative vigour are commanding.

Elsewhere, Andrew Cyrille’s crisp rolls on the second disc, Havana, Cuba, sit easily with Smith’s fast lines and accurately pitched sustains. Jack DeJohnette’s mastery of time, texture and space enliven the fourth disc, Freedom Summer, The Legacy, and the five-movement suite Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains, which makes up the fifth disc.

Each drummer takes a turn at Smith’s freely unfolding composition “The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force that Destroys Democracy”, making differences in style clear. DeJohnette’s lopsided rolls and tonal precision are a notable contrast to Cyrille’s broken military beats and akLaff’s use of space. Smith plays piano on a scattering of pieces, adding variety to an already vibrant mix.

These four CDs were recorded in 2019 and 2020, but the jazz-legacy references of the third disc, Mysterious Sonic Fields, date from 2014. Smith’s elegiac musings combine with Dutch drummer Han Bennink’s rumbling pulse and, as throughout this remarkable set, contrast outrage with tranquillity and fury with calm.

★★★★☆

‘The Emerald Duets’ is released by TUM