WADADA LEO SMITH — The Great Lakes Suites (review)

WADADA LEO SMITH — The Great Lakes Suites album cover Album · 2014 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
snobb
"The Great Lakes Suites", trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith's new release, is one more success. If some his more current recordings come as monumental works for orchestra, "Suites.." is quite different. Although it is a large-scale project by length (released as a double CD, which is quite normal for Wadada), it is recorded by only quartet.

It doesn't always sound like just a quartet though - more of a mini-big band sound (not by intensity of musical flow but by the manner of playing) and often quite close to Wadada's big orchestras. The music flows without peaks and extended solos, but as a complex, even if minimalist, well-balanced wave. Bassist John Lindberg is Wadada's most regular collaborator, drummer Jack DeJohnette already recorded some music with Smith as well. Henry Threadgill (on saxes and flutes) is probably less involved in the trumpeter's most current works, but his music is rooted in the same Chicagoan AACM tradition as Leo's for decades.

I am familiar with all of Wadada's most current releases, and even if his composition manner is obvious on them all (which is only for the good, since he is one of the most original of all living composers in large-format jazz music), "Suites.." is different from his other works in at least one thing - nothing is bombastic here.

Dedicated to the five Great Lakes (one composition to each) plus one more (the final composition, titled as "Lake St. Clair) dedicated to a different Lake - musician Oliver Lake. All of the music on here has that atmosphere which one always associates with big northern waters; geological history, cold water masses, glacial stones and never-ending flows. Nothing is slow in this music, but nothing is nervous, quirky or explosive as well. All four of the musicians build well-balanced complex and often beautiful (as nature itself - without even a touch of sentimentality) music, never pathetic. Here one can hear how Wadada, trumpeter and composer, sounds at his best.

Excellent work, one of Wadada's best for years.
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