Smith, Wadada Leo - Solo: Reflections And Meditations On Monk
SKU
28-TUMR53.2
Wadada Leo Smith trumpet
"Most people would never realize that I am closer to Thelonious Monk than to any other artist," says Smith. "What connects us is a vision of composition and its forms, music psychology, and our articulation of the ensemble as a trashing field for new information." From the time he listened to the early masters of modern jazz as a teenager, Smith felt that "It was Monk, his ideas of a band and composition, that were the closest to what I dreamed of being as an artist. His history of composition and his knowledge of how to use sound were a prime motivator, really, for me wanting to be a composer. I would go back and forth between him and Duke Ellington on this, but Monk had the upper hand in the end."