Wadada Leo Smith: Ten Freedom Summers

Nameless Sound presents Wadada Leo Smith: Ten Freedom Summers. The first full production in the American South of Wadada Leo Smith’s major work on the American Civil Rights Movement presented in three parts in three cities.

Audience is invited to travel to experience the full production:

• For tickets to the concert in Austin on October 12th: http://epistrophyarts.tumblr.com/
• For tickets to the concert in New Orleans on October 14th: http://newquorum.org/

performed by:
Wadada Leo Smith’s Golden Quartet
and RedKoral String Quartet
with video images by Jesse Gilbert

“I was born in 1941 and grew up in segregated Mississippi and experienced the conditions which made it imperative for an activist movement for equality. I saw that stuff happening. Those are the moments that triggered this. It was in that same environment that I had my first dreams of becoming a composer and performer.” – Wadada Leo Smith

ISHMAEL WADADA LEO SMITH: trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser has been active in creative contemporary music for over forty years. His systemic music language Ankhrasmation is significant in his development as an artist and educator.

Born in Leland, Mississippi, Smith’s early musical life began in the high school concert and marching bands. At the age of thirteen, he became involved with the Delta Blues and Improvisation music traditions. He received his formal musical education with his stepfather Alex Wallace, the U.S. Military band program (1963), Sherwood School of Music (1967-69), and Wesleyan University (1975-76).

Mr. Smith has studied a variety of music cultures: African, Japanese, Indonesian, European and American.

“A staggering achievement, with the dramatic sweep of the trumpeter’s writing (for both a chamber orchestra and his own small group)… It merits comparison to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme in sobriety and reach.” — Francis Davis, Rhapsody Jazz Critics Poll

“Ten Freedom Summers is his magnum opus; it belongs in jazz’s canonical lexicon with Duke Ellington’s Black Brown & Beige and Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite.” — Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

“Five stars. Although there are many outstanding recordings in Smith’s canon, it’s hard to avoid calling this his masterpiece.” — Barry Witherden, BBC Music Magazine

“A master at uttering profound truths with bracing dissonance, stripped-down musical gestures and striking contrasts of instrumental color, Smith presided over music of searing expressive power. Even if you didn’t know that “Ten Freedom Summers” grapples with our nation’s struggles over civil rights, this music conveyed tremendous visceral and intellectual impact.” – Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune

“There are ambitious works, and then there is trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith’s Ten Freedom Summers… The sound is never less than widescreen. You won’t find any vamp sessions or alternating solos in Smith’s interpretation of jazz – like the history he’s reprising, it only moves forward.” — Otis Hart, NPR

“Ten Freedom Summers is one of my life’s defining works.”  – Wadada Leo Smith

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/wadadaleosmith