A Love Sonnet For Billie Holiday
A Love Sonnet For Billie Holiday
Free jazz and serenity aren’t often be considered complementary propositions. A Love Sonnet For Billie Holiday offers an exception to that notion as three improvisatory masters join forces for the first time. For trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, this isn’t his first turn at mining inspiration from Lady Day, but continues his streak of channeling something of her mournful strength through his instrument.
This isn’t, however, an album strictly paying tribute to Holiday. An even lengthier contribution from Smith peaks and ebbs with the rhythm of a miniature instrumental opera in tribute to his pianist/composer friend Anthony Davis. Keyboardist Vijay Iyer, the arguable melodic centering presence of the trio, lets Malcolm X's most famous orations haunt a seemingly shambolic mediation on power as reflected in the wrestling between piano, brass and percussion.
The source of that percussion, Jack DeJohnette, contributes an arrangement of a previously-recorded composition acting as a paean for world forgiveness that also urges Iyer to an exultant bliss recalling some of Lyle Mayes' accompaniment to Pat Metheny. Smith’s, Iyer’s and DeJohnette’s combined contributions to the set’s final track brings to mind a jazzier, acoustic analog to the jittery synth punk of Suicide. The absence of bass throughout the album gives the session an expansive airiness that aids in making the whole project perhaps a tad less intimidating than an equally experimental outing with a heavier low end might.
