Wadada
Leo Smith - trumpet, seal horn, mbira, and voice
Harumi
Makino Smith - poetry, voice
CONDOR (For
Dizzy Gillespie)
In a full blue sky on its
back
A condor is flying down towards me,
I can see the sky closer.
Its wings widely spread-out in front of me,
This moment the condor was
Picking my flesh and,
It brought me closer to the ravine of space and time.
It's dark and deep, the place has no stars
Let me take a ritual hint to forget all fears.
Condor,
While hearing the sounds exposing your wing
In the breeze, I was born into the ground.
Sky was simply too for to reach,
I made my first cry with sadness.
(©
1998 Harumi Makino Smith / Kiom Music)
(© 1998 Harumi Makino Smith / Kiom Music)
p r e s s r e v i e w s
Condor,
Autumn Wind was recorded in concert, this time in
Durham, North Carolina. Basically a duet between the Smiths
(Leo on trumpet, seal horn,
mbira, and voice, Harumi
performing the poetry), it develops into an intimate and personal
session...Smith's playing is intense and hard-edged, totally
focused, never discursive
Barry
Witherden, The Wire [UK]
On Condor, Smith honors
African and Mississippi blues roots with a thumb-piano rendition
of Skip James' "Special Rider Blues." Elsewhere he
performs spacious, abstract pieces on trumpet and flute, alone
and accompanying Harumi Makino Smith's elegiac poetry.
Bill
Meyer, Magnet
Condor,
Autumn Wind, recorded live in Durham, shows the potential
of the emerging Mid-Atlantic concert circuit for avant garde
jazz and improvised music. A lot of improvisers talk vaguely
about creating a space in which the music can be spawned and
received, but Wadada Leo Smith pursues and achieves this goal
with an unique, focused discipline on the mostly solo Condor,
Autumn Wind. Throughout the program, Smith's trumpet solos have
an episodic quality, where the overall shape of the piece is
altered with each boldly shaped phrase. At strategic points
in the program, he complements his palette with voice, mbira,
percussion, wood flute, and bike horn-like seal-horn. On three
pieces, Harumi Makino Smith's poetry (read both in English and
Japanese) provides an evocative counterpoint. In all, Condor,
Autumn Wind is a winding journey with many intriguing stops.
Bill
Shoemaker, JazzTimes
