Wadada Leo Smith and Amina Claudine Myers make magical debut live appearance at Brooklyn’s Roulette

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Amina Claudine Myers were born just over three months and 200 miles apart from one another, in Leland, MS and Blackwell, AK, respectively. In 1969, about 27 years later and 10 hours north, they first came together in a Chicago studio as part of the sessions for saxophonist Maurice McIntyre’s Delmark LP Humility In The Light Of Creator.           

Then, oddly, for two musicians so supremely blending mind and heart in their respective oeuvres, they never crossed paths again, at least in any way documented. Fast-forward over a half-century and the pair made their long-awaited reunion with the 2021 Red Hook Records album Central Park's Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens. Yet it would take another three years until, finally, on 4 December at Brooklyn’s Roulette, they were heard on stage for the first time.

While Smith has worked in this format previously with Vijay Iyer and Angelica Sanchez, Myers brings out his deepest blues sensibility, drawing from both their roots and collective experience. At Roulette they performed all the pieces in order from the Central Park suite – apart from the solo piano composition ‘When Was’ – and, given the subject matter, it was apropos to hear natural sources like wind, water, sun and wildlife in their lines and dialogues.

The concert began with ‘Conservatory Gardens’, Myers unaccompanied in a slow cascade of single notes. As Smith entered in a similar vein, an image of leaves flying in a light breeze was conjured. In what was almost a call and response, Smith became more impassioned and Myers more delicate. The next piece, ‘Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir’, had Smith briefly adding avian flair via a mute and Myers more mystical; removing the mute found Smith turning declarative.

Smith is less a trumpeter than a sculptor of air, as a listener follows an exhalation all the way from deep inside his lungs through his embouchure to its journey out of the bell. This can manifest as shades of Shakespearean forest, an urban tangle (highlighted by NYPD sirens audible on the other side of the hall’s emergency exit) or bluesy sermonizing accomplished with an expressive smear. 

‘The Harlem Meer’ was brought to life through smoky mute and elegant chords, the removal of the former heralding ‘Albert Ayler, a Meditation in Light’, a poignant lament to the dedicatee.

Before the final piece, ‘Imagine, a mosaic for John Lennon’, Smith came out to the front of the stage to speak upon the significance of the evening, his upcoming appearance at the Big Ears Festival (as well as an anecdote about air travel issues from his last time there) and his penchant for long titles to his pieces. Of the latter he said, ‘If you can’t read the titles of my pieces, you won’t be able to find secrets embedded in them.’ Then he and Myers closed with a convocation of sorts, unadorned yet grand and expansive, replete with solemnity and wonder at creation. It sounded almost like a spiritual but then the entire concert had holy spirits hovering in the wings.