Forget Wall Street: Occupy the World!

Wadada Leo Smith is Anthony Braxton, Miles Davis and Gil Evans rolled into one on his new album Occupy the World. It picks up where his magnum opus, last year’s Ten Freedom Summers left off. In the liner notes, Smith optimistically quotes Thoreau in envisioning the possibility of a better society than what the Western democracies have achieved thus far. Joining Smith and his longtime bassist John Lindberg for a set of towering new works for large ensemble is the 21-piece Finnish group Tumo, comprised of many of that scene’s most adventurous players. In many respects, this slightly smaller yet similarly lavish double-disc set echoes Ten Freedom Summers’ most lush, sweepingly atmospheric moments.

The opening composition, Queen Hatshepsut, grows methodically out of a somber, slowly syncopated theme followed by a triptych of group improvisations in the same vein as Smith’s old Chicago pal Anthony Braxton. It’s elegant and airy, with plenty of space for similarly judicious (and occasionally raucous) solo features from saxophones, flute and piano, with Smith’s own regal, resonant trumpet solo as its centerpiece.

The Bell 2 expands on Smith’s quartet composition originally released on Braxton’s 1968 album 3 Compositions of New Jazz, beefed up for large ensemble with a new introduction and a more rhythmic focus. Verneri Pohjola’s spacy electronics and Mikko Iinvanainen’s dark, biting electric guitar help carry it forty-five years from its origins as a lustrous proto Space Odyssey theme.

The first cd’s last track, Mount Kilimanjaro was written as a companion piece to Smith’s 2004 piece The Africana World. That one was a feature for violinist Jenifer Choi; this is a vehicle for Lindberg. It opens with an expansively spacious, majestically intense bowed bass solo, collides with cadenzas from the orchestra. epic drums pairing off against the strings’ fluttery angst.

The second cd opens with the Crossing on a Southern Road (A Memorial for Marion Brown), a sweepingly rapt 25-minute-plus homage to the late saxophonist. Dreamy ambience surrounds tersely dancing bass, an agitated pulse giving way to whispery strings, stately shifting shades, a burnished Smith muted trumpet solo and richly sustained, quiet swells that are suddenly and cruelly cut short.

The title track, perhaps ironically true to its inspiration, was completed in haste shortly before its 2011 premiere by the Oxford Improvisers Orchestra. It clocks in at over half an hour and interpolates portions of two previous works, Smith’s Kosmic Music and the string quartet section of In the Diaspora. And it’s counterintuitive: although there is frequent agitation, driven by biting, tumbling strings, it’s more of a methodically crescendoing tribute to resolute defiance. Again, Smith’s sostenuto trumpet serves as a frequent anchor, through a momentarily explosive duet with electric guitar. giving way to shifting sheets of orchestration and finally a gorgeously luminous full-orchestra coda with echoes of Gil Evans at his most majestic.

With tight and inspired playing, the cast also includes trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, trombonist Jari Hongisto, horn player Kalle Hassinen, tuba player Kenneth Ojutkangas, Seppo Kantonen on piano, Iro Haarla on harp, Kalle Kalima on guitar, Veli Kujala on quartertone accordion, Terhi Pylkkanen and Neils Thorkild Levinsen on violins, Barbora Hilpo on viola, Iida-Vilhelmiina Laine on cello, Ulf Krokfors on bass, and Janne Tuomi, Mika Kallio and Stefan Pasborg on drums. Finnish label Tum Records, recently home to Smith’s small-group projects, gets credit for putting this one out in a lavish package with artwork and extensive, insightful liner notes.

Advertisement