Wadada Leo Smith: Once In A Lifetime

Venerable free jazz icon joined by Jakob Bro and Marcus Gilmore on new recording, adding Thomas Morgan for last European live dates

At age 83, Wadada Leo Smith plays trumpet with the wise restraint of a Zen master, though he’s still capable of the fiery blasts from his early AACM years, back in the late 1960s.

Since his return to ECM a decade ago, the free jazz innovator (he prefers the term ‘creative music’) recorded two albums with Vijay Iyer plus the brilliant Lebroba (2018) with …