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Wadada Leo Smith — Fire Illuminations
(Bandcamp Kabell Records KB112, 2023, CD / LP / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2023-05-10

Fire Illuminations Cover art

After many years of hearing large-scale works involving orchestras, string quartets, and the like from Wadada Leo Smith, I sometimes forget that I first really became aware of his music with the Yo Miles! project with Henry Kaiser, music which was inspired by the early electric period of Miles Davis. Smith’s trumpet was part of a funky stew with electric guitars and bass along with electronics. That was more than 20 years ago, and Smith has been incredibly prolific since then, but with Fire Illuminations, he touches on similar territory. He calls this group Orange Wave Electric, and it features bassists Bill Laswell and Melvin Gibbs, guitarists Nels Cline, Brandon Ross, and Lamar Smith, drummer Pheeroan Aklaff, and percussionist Mauro Refosco, along with electronics from Hardedge (Velibor Pedevski). The full ensemble performs on the two long tracks that form the backbone of the album; there are also three shorter tracks where subsets of the band contribute. Much like Teo Macero did with Bitches Brew, Smith spliced together portions from hours of recorded music to produce the album in its final form. And much like Bitches Brew, there is an overriding feeling of open space in spite of the number of musicians involved. There are stretches of funky grooving where basses and guitars present minimalistic parts to avoid getting in each other’s way. At other times, the music drifts into free rhythms, but again, the players aren’t vying for attention but letting the spaced-out mood carry the day. Aklaff and Refosco are a formidable team, and there are certainly times when it sounds like there are multiple percussionists, which may or may not be the case, given the way the music was assembled. As impressive as Wadada Leo Smith’s symphonies and larger works are, I find Fire Illuminations more likely to get revisited in the future — it’s a tasty slab of dark electric grooving that hits a sweet spot between jazz and funk.

Filed under: New releases, 2023 releases

Related artist(s): Nels Cline, Wadada Leo Smith, Bill Laswell

More info
http://wadadaleosmith1.bandcamp.com/album/fire-illuminations

 

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