1 	A Sonic Voice Inclosed In The Wind 	5:43
2 	Tarantella Rusticana 	6:58
3 	Pure Stillness 	5:39
4 	Gassire's Lute 	8:55
5 	Woodland Trail To The Giants 	8:08
6 	Bass-Star Hemispheres (Dedicated To P.K.) 	11:52
7 	Rain Cycles 	5:10
8 	Old Times Roll – New Times Goal 	5:27
9 	A Silent Letter To Someone 	7:28

Drums, Percussion – Günter Baby Sommer
Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Electronics – Wadada Leo Smith 

This program of duo performances by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and drummer Gunter Baby Sommer is both the renewal on record of a long-standing musical relationship and at the same time a kind of homage to their fallen comrade, the bassist Peter Kowald, whose death robbed the improvised music scene of one of its stalwarts. Amongst other things, the three men had recorded as a trio (Touch the Earth, FMP Records, 1979) and their shared history lends this music a deep poignancy.

However, the results on Wisdom in Time are a whole lot more than just music minus one. Both players have an unerring grasp of dynamics and an appreciation for each other's musical personalities. Thus, on something like "Tarantella Rusticana," their interplay is both deft and subtle, even as Sommer assumes the role of a low-key, perpetual-motion machine. The impression is amplified in no small part by the sonic clarity, so that even when he's at his most frenetic, Smith's paradoxically unassuming lyricism is also faithfully captured.

This is only too apparent on "Woodland Trail to the Giants," where Smith's use of electronics supplements the natural range of his horn. The resulting music has a meditative air; and in that respect, at least it has a lot in common with "A Silent Letter to Someone," where the prosaic title is more than justified and the innate value of underplaying made only too apparent. Sommer expands the music's sonic range through his deft use of gongs and the like, and again Smith's singular use of electronics makes for music of extraordinary color, given the effective paucity of the resources deployed.

There's also an indefinable quality in this music that's the result of the longevity of the duo's working relationship. On "Gassire's Lute," it's manifested in their acute alertness to each other, and it results in music that, for all of its essentially quiet heart, is still informed by the very things that make for compelling improvisation. The listener's attention is in effect drawn in by the sound of simultaneous invention and the rewards it offers. In this case, those are abundant.

It all comes down to the fact that this is one of those infrequent occasions when it sounds as if the music had to be made, as a consequence of some existential necessity. It is thus deeply human, and as such the very stuff of life, or at least what life could be. The results of human creativity don't come any better. ---Nic Jones, allaboutjazz.com

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1 	Ornette Coleman´s Harmolodic Sonic Hierographic Forms: A Resonance Change In The Millennium 	16:22
2 	Ohnedaruth John Coltrane: The Master Of Kosmic Music And His Spirituality In A Love Supreme 	14:00
3 	Najwa 	3:31
4 	Ronald Shannon Jackson: The Master Of Symphonic Drumming And Multi-Sonic Rhythms, Inscriptions Of A Rare Beauty 	11:49
5 	The Empress, Lady Day: In A Rainbow Garden, With Yellow-Gold Hot Springs, Surrounded By Exotic Plants And Flowers 	10:01

Drums – Pheeroan Aklaff
Electric Bass – Bill Laswell
Guitar – Brandon Ross, Henry Kaiser, Lamar Smith, Michael Gregory Jackson 
Trumpet, Composed By [All Compositions] – Wadada Leo Smith 

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's introductory liner notes to Najwa begin with Muddy Waters, so we'll begin there, too.

Wadada Leo Smith was born in 1941, in Leland, Mississippi, around the time Alan Lomax showed up down in Clarksdale, Miss., to record—among many others—McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters. The Lomax field recordings of Waters and his band became the album Down On Stovall's Plantation (Universe Records, 1966). It was an all acoustic affair. Then, shortly after these tunes were recorded, Waters moved to Chicago, discovered the advantages of the electric guitar and plugged in, and lined up a relationship with Chess Records that changed American music.

Smith, with roots in the same soil that birthed the blues—and Muddy Waters—received his first tutelage in music from his stepfather, Alex "Little Bill" Wallace," another seminal electric guitar-playing bluesman. Smith also traveled the Muddy Waters, north-to-south pilgrimage to Chicago, where he convened with the musicians of the avant-garde AACM.

With Najwa, Smith revisits, in a way, his earliest influences, with a guitar album of sorts. As such, the music celebrates free jazz pioneer, Ornette Coleman; and the high priest of jazz saxophone, John Coltrane; the orchestral and "multi-sonic" drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson; love; and lastly the Crown Princess of Jazz Vocalists, Billie Holiday.

Smith's band features four guitarists who paint translucent colors over odd, muscular bass/drums/percussion grooves. It is an airier sound than he goes for with his group Organic—a near-big band conglomeration featuring multiple guitar line-ups. Considering four guitar guys coming at you, the luminescent Najwa is—for the most part—a surprisingly uncluttered sound. The guitars weave ephemeral textures, entwinements of blurry threads, smeared and glowing. Smith's trumpet is a human voice, by turns plaintive, sharp, concise, piercing, joyous, tranquil. Smith, like Miles Davis before him, maintains a consistent horn sound; his voice doesn't change. It's the sounds around him that change.

Smith often goes epic. He opens Najwa with the anthemic, sixteen minute "Ornette Coleman's Harmolodic Sonic Hierographic Forms: A Resonance Change In The Millennium" to get your attention, then helps you find religion with the fourteen minute "Ohnedaruth John Coltrane: The Master Of Kosmic Music And His Spirituality In A Love Supreme." The relatively brief title tune is an ode to love lost, a gorgeous soundtrack to a dream, or a portal to a parallel dimension, before the disc's tribute aspect reemerges with a nod to the late drummer, and sometimes participant in Smith's Golden Quartet, Ronald Shannon Jackson, on the dark-hued and insistently rhythmic "Ronald Shannon Jackson: The Master Of Symphonic Drumming and Multi-Sonic Rhythms, Inscriptions Of Rare Beauty." Smith's love letter to vocalist Billie Holiday closes the set. Titled, in typical Smithian fashion, "The Empress, Lady Day: In a Rainbow Garden, with Yellow-Gold Hot Springs, Surrounded By Exotic Plant And Flowers," it wraps this superb recording up with great beauty and a sacred serenity.

And a nod to the set's bassist, Bill Laswell, for his strong but supple and off kilter quasi-funk undercurrents (and sometimes over-currents), and for his assistance in the additions of post recording tweakings and enhancements—always understated and spot on in their elevations of Wadada Leo Smith's singular sounds and concepts. ---Dan McClenaghan, allaboutjazz.com

Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith jest jedną z najbarwniejszych i najważniejszych postaci improwizowanego jazzu. Ostatnie lata to najpiękniejszy okres w życiu kontrowersyjnego artysty: jest ozdobą najważniejszych festiwalu, realizuje ciekawe projekty oraz nagrywa albumy dla prestiżowych oficyn. Wadada Leo Smith to artysta niezwykle aktywny, współautor sukcesów i wspaniałych nagrań Mariona Browna, Anthony’ego Braxtona, koncertów z Donem Cherrym, Cecil Taylorem, Lesterem Bowiem, Johnem Zornem, Charliem Hadenem, Jack DeJohnette, Billem Laswellem.

W swoim dorobku ma ponad 60 albumów nagranych dla najbardziej liczących się wytwórni. Najnowszy ” Najwa” zrealizował dla fińskiej oficyny TUM Records. Tym razem trębacz przedstawia octet, złożony z samych gwiazd i mentorów nowoczesnego jazzu ( Wadada Leo Smith –trąbka, Michael Gregory Jackson, Henry Kaiser, Brandon Ross i Lamar Smith – gitary, Bill Laswell – elektryczny bas, Pheeroan akLaff – perkusja oraz Adam Rudolph– instrumenty perkusyjne). Muzycy niezwykle konsekwentnie bawią się awangardowym brzmieniem, rozbudowaną i przemyślaną improwizacją, ale nie starają się „udziwniać” samej muzyki. Udział czterech gitarzystów także narzuca określone stylistyczne wolty, ale Wadada Leo Smith lubi takie karkołomne konfiguracje. Jest nie tylko liderem zespołu, ale także kompozytorem wszystkich granych tutaj (z ogromnym zaangażowaniem i emocjami ) utworów ( „ Ornette Coleman´s Harmolodic Sonic Hierographic Forms: A Resonance Change in the Millennium”,” Ohnedaruth John Coltrane: The Master of Kosmic Music and His Spirituality in a Love Supreme”, tytułowa “ Najwa”, “ Ronald Shannon Jackson: The Master of Symphonic Drumming and Multi-Sonic Rhythms, Inscriptions of a Rare Beauty”, “The Empress, Lady Day: In a Rainbow Garden, with Yellow-Gold Hot Springs, Surrounded by Exotic Plants and Flowers”). To znowu rodzaj specyficznych suit, jakie proponuje muzykom kompozytor. Kilkunastominutowe utwory budowane są impresjami i skojarzeniami z muzyką wielkich free-jazzu oraz nowoczesnych, harmolodycznych improwizacji ( Ornette Colleman, John Coltrane, Ronald Shannon Jackson). Jak odległa jest dzisiaj muzyka Wadada Leo Smith’a od harmolidic-jazzu Colemana czy Jackson trudno definitywnie określić. Zdaje się, że rozgrywa się także i teraz w blasku brzmień albumu „Najwa”. Tak dzisiaj tworzy swój jazz Wadada Leo Smith – trębacz i naturszczyk z Missisippi, kreator AACM w Chicago, teraz rezydent słonecznego Los Angeles. Finalista Pulitzer Music Prize. Jazzowy bohater naszych czasów ! ---jazz.pl

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