The Emerald Duets
Wadada Leo Smith
Awards:
-
BBC Music Magazine, October 2022, Jazz Choice
Wadada’s command of his instrument is as tight and graceful as ever and his partners are all completely empathetic. The recording captures all the crucial detail while respecting the instances...
The Emerald Duets
Wadada Leo Smith
Purchase product
Awards:
-
BBC Music Magazine, October 2022, Jazz Choice
Wadada’s command of his instrument is as tight and graceful as ever and his partners are all completely empathetic. The recording captures all the crucial detail while respecting the instances...
About
5 CDs and a 60-page booklet.
The Emerald Duets is a crowning achievement among Wadada Leo Smith's many recorded duo collaborations with drummers/percussionists, that have previously featured such creative giants as Ed Blackwell, Jack DeJohnette, Milford Graves, Louis Moholo-Moholo and Günter Sommer, among others.
The Emerald Duets features four master drummers who have each, in their own unique fashion, contributed to the way modern drumming has developed in the past six decades and how it is now perceived. Pheeroan akLaff, Andrew Cyrille and Han Bennink are each featured on one disc and Jack DeJohnette on two discs, including Smith's five-part composition "Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains" that fills the fifth disc of this boxed set in its entirety.
The sessions with akLaff, Cyrille and DeJohnette mostly feature compositions by Wadada Leo Smith, including three very different versions of Smith's powerful statement for the protection of freedom and democracy, "The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force that Destroys Democracy." The session with Bennink includes a combination of Smith's compositions and collectively created tracks.
Contents and tracklist
Disc 1. Wadada Leo Smith & Pheeroan akLaff: Litanies, Prayers and Meditations
01. The Prayer (For Keith Jarrett)
02. First Meditation from the Heart: the Beauty, the Beloved
03. The Uyghur in Xinjiang, China
Rumi's Masnavi: A Sonic Expression
04. Part I
05. Part II
06. Part III
07. Part IV
08. A Sonic Litany on Peace
09. The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force that Destroys Democracy
10. A Sonic Litany on Justice
11. Second Meditation from the Heart: the Beloved, the Beauty
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet and piano)
Pheeroan akLaff (drums)
Disc 2. Wadada Leo Smith & Andrew Cyrille: Havana, Cuba
01. The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force that Destroys Democracy
02. Havana, the Maghrib Prayer and Reflections
03. United States Representative Ilhan Omar
04. Jeanne Lee: In a Jupiter Mood
05 . Donald Ayler: The Master of the Sound and Energy Forms
06. A Rainbow Sonic Ark for Tomasz Ludwik Stanko (1942-2018)
07. Haiti, an Independent Nation in 1804 but Not Recognized by Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Others: A Designed Tragedy!
08.Mongezi Feza
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet)
Andrew Cyrille (drums)
Disc 3. Wadada Leo Smith & Han Bennink: Mysterious Sonic Fields
01. Chrysanthemum Flowers on a Mountaintop (For Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson)
02. Largo: A Mysterious Love Sonic (For Shana, Robeson and Sarah)
03. Louis Armstrong in New York City and Accra, Ghana
04. Albert Einstein: Particles of Light, a Study in Perception
05. Ornette Coleman at the World's Fair of Science and Art in Fort Worth, Texas
06. The Call - A Duet between Joseph "King" Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton
07. Light Garden in a Dream-Space, a Remembrance of Shaba of Ethiopia
08. Han Bennink on Fifth Avenue, NYC
09. Johnny Dyani, the Artist Who Imagined a New South Africa. A Celebration
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet)
Han Bennink (drums and percussion)
Disc 4. Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette: Freedom Summer, the Legacy
01. Sandalwood and Sage
02. Freedom Summer
03. Meditation: A Sonic Circle of Double Piano Resonances
04. The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force that Destroys Democracy
05. Silence, Quietness and Very Still
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet and piano)
Jack DeJohnette (drums, piano and Fender Rhodes)
Disc 5. Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette: Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains
Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains
01. Part I - The River of Abundance
02. Part II - The Fountain of Tasnim
03. Part III - The Supreme Fountain
04. Part IV - Exaltation and Musk
05. Part V - Pomegranates and Herbal Teas
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet)
Jack DeJohnette (drums)
Awards and reviews
-
BBC Music MagazineOctober 2022Jazz Choice
October 2022
Wadada’s command of his instrument is as tight and graceful as ever and his partners are all completely empathetic. The recording captures all the crucial detail while respecting the instances of inky silence that are equally integral to the music. Lock yourself away for a weekend with this one.
October 2022
A prolific output in the last decade has seen Smith explore many musical settings but the trumpeter’s imagination knows no bounds. This 5-CD box set pairs him with five drummers of different generations, cultures and above all personalities, the net result being a kind of tribute to the instrument in question as well as a vehicle for Smith’s compositional verve.
