Wadada Leo Smith, Solo: Reflections and Meditations on Monk

As we celebrate and commemorate the 100th birthday of Thelonious Monk, we mark the occasion in a number of ways. Perhaps no more touchingly and succinctly a marking can be found than on trumpet master Wadada Leo Smith's Solo: Reflections and Meditations on Monk (TUM CD 053).

The premise is simple: turn Wadada loose in the studio with just his trumpet and some clear ideas on how solo improvisations can capture the essence of Monk's special mastery while also allowing Wadada to create art wholly his own.

This is tour de force trumpet artistry and a source of insight into Wadada the gifted improvisational inventor. Every phrase seems deliberate, nothing is as if an aside.

You hear Wadada as he is right now, an artist who in a way has come full circle through Yo Miles and ambitious jazz compositions, all of a very high order. Now once again he proudly proclaims his artistic independence as a player and in the process shows his great respect and love for the master, Thelonious Monk.

I could blather on at great length here. It is not entirely necessary. Suffice to say that Wadada Leo Smith is one of our real treasures, a giant among American artists living and excelling today, one of the world's musical wonders, so to speak.

He says it all with the utmost of inspiration and compactness, with just his trumpet and all his considerable innovative faculties.

Can I suggest you get this and live with the music for a while? You'll come away with something you would not have inside you otherwise, maybe. That is how rewarding this set is.