Wadada Leo Smith - Emerald Duets (CD)

(5-CD set) The Emerald Duets is a crowning achievement among Wadada Leo Smith's many recorded duo collaborations with drummers/percussionists that have previously featured such creative giants as Ed Blackwell, Jack DeJohnette, Milford Graves (TUM BOX 003), Louis Moholo-Moholo (TUM CD 029) and Gnter Sommer, among others. The Emerald Duets features four master drummers who have each, in their own unique fashion, contributed to the way modern drumming has developed in the past six decades and how it is now perceived. Pheeroan akLaff, Andrew Cyrille and Han Bennink are each featured on one disc and Jack DeJohnette on two discs, including Smith's five-part composition "Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains" that fills the fifth disc of this boxed set in it's entirety. The sessions with akLaff, Cyrille and DeJohnette mostly feature compositions by Wadada Leo Smith, including three very different versions of Smith's powerful statement for the protection of freedom and democracy, "The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force that Destroys Democracy." The session with Bennink includes a combination of Smith's compositions and collectively created tracks.

Track List:

Disc: 1

1. Litanies, Prayers and Meditations
2. The Prayer (For Keith Jarrett)
3. First Meditation from the Heart: The Beauty, the Beloved
4. The Uyghur in Xinjiang, China
5. A Sonic Expression (Wadada Leo Smith)
6. Part 1
7. Part 2
8. Part 3
9. Part 4
10. A Sonic Litany on Peace
11. The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force That Destroys Democracy
12. A Sonic Litany on Justice
13. Second Meditation from the Heart: The Beloved, the Beauty
14. Havana, Cuba
15. The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force That Destroys Democracy
16. Havana, the Maghrib Prayer and Reflections
17. Ilhan Omar
18. Mongezi Feza
19. Jeanne Lee: In a Jupiter Mood
20. Donald Ayler: The Master of the Sound and Energy Forms
21. A Rainbow Sonic Ark for Tomasz Ludwik Stanko (1942-2018
22. Haiti, An Independent Nation in 1804 But Not Recognized By Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Others: A Designed Tragedy
23. Mysterious Sonic Fields
24. Chrysanthemum Flowers on a Mountaintop (For Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson)
25. Largo: A Mysterious Love Sonic (For Shana Redmond and Her Famil)
26. Louis Armstrong in New York City and Accra, Ghana
27. Albert Einstein: Particles of Light, a Study in Perception
28. Ornette Coleman at the World's Fair of Science and Art in Fort Worth, Texas
29. The Call - a Duet Between Joseph "King" Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton
30. Light Garden in a Dream-Space, a Remembrance of Shaba of Ethiopia
31. Han Bennink on Fifth Avenue, NYC
32. Johnny Dyani, the Artist Who Imagined a New South Africa. a Celebration
33. Wadada Leo Smith ; Jack Dejohnette: Freedom Summer, the Legacysandalwood and Sage
34. Freedom Summer
35. Meditation: A Sonic Circle of Double Piano Resonances
36. The Patriot Act, Unconstitutional and a Force That Destroys Democracy
37. Silence, Quietness and Very Still
38. Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains
39. Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains
40. Part I - the River of Abundance
41. Part II - the Fountain of Tasnim
42. Part III - the Supreme Fountain
43. Part IV - Exaltation and Musk
44. Part V - Pomegranates and Herbal Teas