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 Andrew Cyrille and Bill Frisell for the German label that previously released his desert island disc, Divine Love (1979). While that one remains the best entry point into his catalogue, his late-career winning streak feels impressive too.

In addtion to the aforementioned records, he released two brilliant records through the Red Hook imprint, founded by former ECM producer Sun Chung: The experimental trio date Two Centuries with Qasim Naqvi and Andrew Cyrille, and a spellbinding duo with fellow AACM member Amina Claudine Myers, Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Garden.

In January 2025, Smith and Danish guitarist Jakob Bro got together for the first time – they have a mutual friend and collaborator in Andrew Cyrille. The lauded drummer Marcus Gilmore had joined both on stage before and was invited to Power Station studio in New York City as well.

The trio played a session, reportedly without much actual conversation taking place, co-composing most of the tunes through live improvisation. The recording was released as an album on Danish imprint Loveland Music in October under the title Murasaki, the Japanese word for the color purple. It’s one of the strongest jazz releases of the year.

Jakob Bro, Marcus Gilmore, Wadada Leo Smith, New York 2025, photo: James Farber

Joined by the brilliant bassist Thomas Morgan, the new group embarked on a small tour through venues in Berlin, Antwerpen and Copenhagen in November. It was announced as Smith’s last European tour appearance, and I was lucky enough to catch them on their Saturday date at Pierre Boulez Saal – just the week before, the trumpeter had played JazzFest together with Vijay Iyer.

The musicians offered two long, deep and tranquil sets and a shorter, more upbeat encore. What was immediately palpable was the telepathic chemistry between this intergenerational quartet.

Gilmore, at 39 the youngest in the bunch, plays a melodic style deeply influenced by Tony Williams, Roy Haynes and Milford Graves, rarely adhering to any countable meter. Bro and Morgan, both in their mid- to late 40s, took more of an accompanying role in this constellation, with Bro adding atmospheric textures to his electric guitar through pedals and effect units. Smith was sitting down for most of the concert – understandable at his age – but if you closed your eyes, you definitely couldn’t imagine an elderly person playing. His colourful style still feels so versatile, so emotional and so energetic it’s almost unbelievable.

I hadn’t heard the album before the show but ordered the CD right after on Bandcamp. It’s a near-perfect slab of contemporary free jazz that yearns for repeat listens, relatively calm but far from uniform or dull. Again, Gilmore doesn’t provide any obvious time signature to latch onto; the record is bookended by two solo pieces that showcase his impressive cymbal work, inviting the listener in and escorting them out of the ceremony like a percussionist shaman.

There are two central pieces here – one is “Yoyogi Park Dream”, an ambient jazz-leaning composition that starts out calm with Gilmore’s brush work, then turns into a canvas for Smith to embark on an expressive journey and ends on Bro’s distinctive guitar chords over electronic textures. The other one is “Imagine The Fire And Flames That Lights Up The Light World”, a dialogue between Smith and Gilmore which doesn’t reach the cathartic power of Rashied Ali’s legendary duos with Coltrane and Frank Lowe, but does channel the energy of two kindred spirits connecting over their love of free music.

“It felt as though this music already existed before we started playing,” Bro is quoted in the press release. “Wadada is like a force of nature, able to break through all the ‘correct’ and obvious choices in music to travel to parallel sound-worlds, where what you thought you knew doesn’t really apply. He seems to have found a loophole to the other side, to a place of mystery, creativity and beauty.”

On Saturday night, I saw Wadada Leo Smith play in the flesh for the first and, possibly, the last time in my life. Leaving the venue and walking slowly towards the city lights of Alexanderplatz, the Japanese proverb ichi-go ichi-e came to my mind. It reminds us of the uniqueness of every moment, advising us to treat every encounter as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The crowd honored Smith with an extra long applause as he was circling the stage after the concert. It seemed as if he almost didn’t to want to leave the hall. He even briefly sat down on a chair in the front row, taking in the cheers, but then he ran off after his band, turning around one last time, waving goodbye.