Trumpet-player, multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith was born December 18, 1941 in Leland, Mississippi. Smith developed an early interest in the Delta Blues and Improvisation music traditions, and received his formal musical education with his father, the U.S. Military band program (1963), Sherwood School of Music (1967-69), and Wesleyan University (1975-76) where he studied ethnomusicology.

In 1967 he became a member of the ASCAP Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and has since become recognized as a leading figure in improvisation and free jazz. With Leroy Jenkins and Anthony Braxton, he co-founded the Creative Construction Company; Smith has also performed and/or recorded with Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, Pauline Oliveros, George Lewis, Cecil Taylor, Derek Bailey, Don Cherry, Henry Brant, Han Bennink, Charlie Haden, and many others. His ensembles have included the New Dalta Ahkri (Henry Threadgill, Anthony Davis, Oliver Lake), the Golden Quartet (Jack DeJohnette, Anthony Davis, Malachi Favors), N’da-Kulture, the Silver Orchestra, and others.

Smith has studied a variety of music cultures and plays several instruments, including the koto, kalimba, and atenteben (Ghanaian bamboo flute). He has consolidated his wide-ranging study into a personal music theory, articulated in notes (8 Pieces) source a new world music: creative music, published by Kiom Press ( 1973) and subsequently translated into Japanese and Italian. His theoretical work has played a significant role in his musical development, as an artist and educator, and is also manifest in his own notation system for creative musicians, called “Ankhrasmation.”

Smith has also composed music for solo, ensemble, classical and creative orchestra and stage works, has received numerous awards and fellowships, and had his works performed by the Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, S.E.M. Ensemble, the California E.A.R. Unit and many others. He has taught at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, New York, and Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Since 1993 Smith has directed the MFA program in African American Improvisational Music at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. His music can be found on many labels including Cambria, Cuneiform, ECM, Moers Music, Pi, Tzadik, and his own label, Kabell.

Excerpts from the music of Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith:

Louis Armstrong Counter-Pointing (1995)
From Kulture Jazz, ECM 1507

Nur: Luminous, Light Upon Light
Music for Ensemble and Contrabass,
dedicated to Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh and composed for Bertram Turetzky
New Century Players; David Rosenboom, conductor; Bertram Turetzky, contrabass
From Light Upon Light, Tzadik TZ 7046

Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace
Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet/flugelhorn; Anthony Braxton, saxophones
From Saturn, Conjunct the Grand Canyon in a Sweet Embrace, Pi 10

Listen to Bardsdale (1997-98), played by guitarist Stuart Fox here:

And hear more samples of Smith’s music here: