P r e s s  R e v i e w s

Jazzwise
Wadada Leo Smith & Anthony Braxton
Organic Resonance
*** (3 stars)

The back sleeve of this album shows Smith and Braxton facing each other from opposite sides of the stage of the adventurous New York venue Tonic. Their knees are slightly bent, heads directed towards mics and music stands as well as each other. Did they make eye contact during the gig I wonder? Did they edge forwards or backwards at any point? Did they take their eyes off the sheet music? All of these questions floated through my mind as I wrapped my ears around the four pieces on this latest release from one of the best Stateside independent labels. These elder statesmen of the AACM have two of the strongest, most distinctive voices in improvised music; the point of fascination for me is how they converse, how their dialogue unfolds.

On a few occasions they talk over and not to one another, they slip, stutter and retract. But for the most part the composite expression on Organic Resonance is as vivid and cohesive as you’d expect from artists of this stature. The lush, legato tones from Smith – they have a bold ancestral and processional quality – and the sweet acidity of Braxton’s alto, one of the most arresting sounds you could hope to hear, form the shapes of a luminous yet lugubrious kaleidoscope. Each player shimmies and sidles around the other, moving both circularly and vertically, creating stark counterpoint and steely harmonies to deepen the enigma of the emergent language. The mathematical structures that Braxton has used as a premise for his music over the years haven’t always created the most lyrical progressions and there are moments when his equations slip into neutral. Smith’s pieces have a slightly earthier quality yet longueurs creep in as well. These are invariably assuaged by the towering strength of character of each soloist and the sustained dramatic momentum of the performance.

- Kevin Le Gendre

Sunday Herald (Scotland)
Wadada Leo Smith & Anthony Braxton
Organic Resonance
***** (5 stars)

Anthony Braxton’s ferocious, world- devouring saxophone style isn’t for the faint-hearted. But as with any alien tongue, prolonged exposure to its forms allows you to start hearing it as a language rather than, as it first appears, a staggering blast of chaos.

In fact, Braxton is one of the most supremely articulate and free-thinking saxophonists of the modern age, a titan who has developed a unique syntax on his chosen instrument in order to mirror more closely the contours of his own being. He also founded New York’s Tri-Centric Foundation, collaborating with musicians, singers and digital video artists.

Trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith, linchpin of the Nda-Kulture Ensemble, was an early cohort of Braxton’s. They played together in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians; in Braxton’s trio and in the Creative Construction Company.

Stylistically the players have much in common, expanding the reach of their chosen instruments via inspired reinventions, often fuelled by investigations into music and cultures outside jazz. Smith in particular is known for his studies in African, Japanese and Indonesian music cultures.

Both also boast highly idiosyncratic approaches to composition, developing their own systems of notation in order to articulate the flight of the spirit more fully.

Organic Resonance is a rare duo-recording that catches the pair live at Tonic in New York in April 2003. Smith and Braxton were tight early on and here their compositional approach seems to overlap to a huge degree.

On the opener, Smith’s Tawaf, the pair work through a series of the kind of rhythmic, circular cells that dominate many of Braxton’s compositions, arcing like weighted moths around each other. Braxton’s own pieces, Composition No 314 and Composition No 315, feel like looser plays on the theme, with the players shadowing each other like boxers, occasionally striking out with leery, strangulated tones and bruising cuffs of brass.

05 October 2003
- David Keenan

jazzweekly.com

Wadada Leo Smith was a member of several of Braxton’s most distinctive early small groups of the late 1960s and early 1970s; a trio with Leroy Jenkins that recorded an LP (Silence) for the Freedom label in 1969, a quartet (with Jenkins and Muhal Richard Abrams) that played on Braxton’s first LP as a leader (Three Compositions of New Jazz, on Delmark), and another quartet (with Jenkins and percussionist Steve McCall) that recorded 2 LPs for the French BYG label. Organic Resonance is the first recorded document produced by these two titans working in a group of any size in over 30 years. Recorded live during a concert at Tonic (NYC) in early April, 2003, Organic Resonance captures both Smith and Braxton in top form. Far from showing any signs of middle-aged mellowing, both play with consummate grit, fire, and invention.

The two Braxton pieces ("Composition No. 314" and "Composition No. 315") are departures from the Ghost Trance Music series, as neither makes use of GTM’s characteristic pulsing substructure. In fact, "314" opens with crystalline fragmented phrases, suspended in time, and completely without tempo. In some ways, and perhaps only coincidentally, this hearkens back to Braxton’s and Smith’s aforementioned work from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s. Not surprisingly, the rest of "314" sounds nothing like anything from 30 years ago. Jumping off into the furious tempo of "315," the pair negotiate a wildly twisted theme with pinpoint precision before launching into a rapid-fire cooperative improvisation. Throughout both pieces, Braxton solos with raw, blasting abandon, sometimes employing Dewey Redman-like growling vocalizations. Smith, too, seems fascinated by the sheer variety of textures he can generate with his horns. Their improvisational dialogues are tight and telepathic – the duo listens hard and seems to anticipate and complete each other’s thoughts in surprising ways

Smith’s pieces are quite a bit different, though they are supported by the same mercurial interplay. Both the gracefully-paced "Tawaf" and the darker, more introspective "Celestial Bow"… have a ritualistic feel. "Tawaf," with multiple sections, includes explorations of trills, long tones, silences of different durations. The roles of the two players, one playing thematic material or long tones while the other solos, continually reverse. Braxton and Smith never get in each other’s way, and they develop and exchange ideas in a relaxed, conversational manner. Yet, without being lofty or stuffy in a pre-conceived way, it’s readily apparent that theirs is no mundane chatter. Smith and Braxton are musical magicians whose improvisational sleight of hand pervades Organic Resonance, and makes for a scintillating listen.

- Dave Wayne

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