Wadada Leo Smith

This is the third album by Wadada Leo Smith’s all-star Golden Quartet. Recorded live, the sound on Tabligh veers from a sound akin to early electric jazz ala "In A Silent Way" and especially 'the lost quintet' of Miles in late 1969/early 1970, to both more sparse and modern jazz fare, all of it informed by the distinctive personalities of these four players and their leader's musical concepts.

Wadada Leo Smith is a well-respected trumpeter and composer working in avant-garde jazz and improvisation. He was an early member of Chicago’s legendary AACM, joining in 1967 and co-founded the Creative Construction Company, a trio with Leroy Jenkins and Anthony Braxton in the late 60s. In 1971 Smith formed his own label, Kabell, for whom he recorded a number of albums considered classics of their kind.

He is currently a professor of Music at the California Institute of the Arts, and is the director of the MFA program in African American Improvisation. Smith has studied a variety of music cultures (African, Japanese, Indonesian, European and American) and has developed a music theory, and a notation system to fully express this music which he calls "Ankhrasmation". He has been a major force in contemporary jazz for over 40 years and performs frequently throughout the world.

We first worked with Wadada when we released the two "Yo Miles" albums, of which he was co-leader, and we both enjoyed working together so much that we decided to work together again on one of his own works.