Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks
Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks
ByAmerica's National Parks is but the latest installment of Smith's ongoing cultural survey of American history. The Great Lakes Suites (TUM Records, 2014), and Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform Records, 2012)the latter of which was inspired by America's civil rights movementpreceded this effort, each as ambitious in scale as this collection.
Smith writes and arranges spare extended pieces that find stylistic concordance with the majestic nature of his protean trumpet playing. His preference for punctuating long, plangent tones and muted glissandos with frenetic flurries of notes and frantic bursts of coruscating dissonance is mirrored in his episodic compositional style, which embraces dynamic chamber music narratives rather than standard AABA song forms.
Smith's panoramic compositions are expertly realized by an expanded incarnation of his Golden Quartet, which features pianist and award-winning composer Anthony Davis, longstanding bassist John Lindberg, in-demand drummer Pheeroan AkLaff, and the fifth and newest member, Ashley Walters on cello. Walters' sinewy lines complement the leader's clarion calls, lending a solemn timelessness to the proceedings, bolstered by Davis' harmonic sophistication, and the nuanced call-and-response interplay between Lindberg and akLaff.
The suite's six multi-part compositions range from just under seven minutes to over half an hour, rewarding repeated in-depth listening over the course of the set's hour and a half duration. Smith, one of the most renowned AACM veterans of the 1970's loft jazz scene, now in his mid-seventies, is enjoying a much deserved late career renaissance, with a growing body of work that confirms him as one of America's very own national treasures; America's National Parks is further proof of his mastery.
Track Listing
CD 1: New Orleans: The National Culture Park USA 1718; Eileen Jackson Southern, 1920-2002: A Literary National Park; Yellowstone: The First National Park And The Spirit Of AmericaThe Mountains, Super-Volcano Caldera And Its Ecosystem 1872. CD2: The Mississippi River: Dark and Deep Dreams Flow the riverA National Memorial Park c. 5000 BC; Sequoia/King's Canyon National Parks: The Giant Forest, Great Canyon, Cliff, Peaks, Waterfalls and Cave System 1890; Yosemite: The Glaciers, The Falls, The Wells And The Valley of Goodwill 1890.
Personnel
Wadada Leo Smith
trumpetAnthony Davis
pianoAshley Walters
celloJohn Lindberg
bassPheeroan AkLaff
drumsJesse Gilbert: video artist.
Album information
Title: America's National Parks | Year Released: 2016 | Record Label: Cuneiform Records
Comments
About Wadada Leo Smith
Instrument: Trumpet
Related Articles | Concerts | Albums | Photos | Similar To