3.10.20: EVENT POSTPONED Harvard University Department of Music Louis C. Elson Lecture Wadada Leo Smith Create: its Philosophy and Practice With performances by Smith (trumpet), Vijay Iyer (piano and electronics), and Andrew Cyrille, drums
Photo: Scott Groller Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 5:15pm Harvard University John Knowles Paine Concert Hall | 3 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA Free and open to all, no tickets required “Wadada is one of the most imaginative and explorative composers in creative music. His vision is uncompromising, his methods holistic and mystical. His playing is consistently brilliant and his sound is personal, with a clarity of tone recognizable after one note.... He is a National Treasure.” – John Zorn
Trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist and composer Wadada Leo Smith will deliver the 2020 Elson Lecture on Tuesday, March 31st at 5:15pm in Paine Hall on Harvard’s Cambridge campus.
Wadada Leo Smith has been a major force in music for over 40 years, known largely in the fields of avant-garde jazz and free jazz. Transcending the bounds of genre or idiom, he dis- tinctly defines his music, inventive in both sound and approach, as “Creative Music.”
An early member of Chicago’s legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Music—joining in 1967—Smith co-founded the Creative Construction Company, a trio with Leroy Jenkins and Anthony Braxton, in the late 60s. In 1971 he formed his own label, Kabell, for whom he recorded a number of albums considered classics of their kind. Smith topped three categories in DownBeat Magazine’s 65th Annual Critics Poll: Jazz Artist, Trumpet and Jazz Album for his 2016 CD America’s National Parks (on Cuneiform). His 2012 Ten Free- dom Summers was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Most recently, Smith received the UCLA Medal, joining the ranks of music luminaries Ella Fitzgerald, Henry Mancini, Herb Alpert and
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