Wadada Leo Smith is Deep

This week, Pittsburgh City Paper is running my preview/interview with Wadada Leo Smith. He and I had a great conversation about a week ago, where it became clear that music is closely connected to everything he does in his life. We probably talked for about five minutes before we even started talking about playing and writing music because he was telling me the inspiration behind his latest suite, which salutes some of our country's national parks.

Not only can you read the feature article here, I also assembled a Q&A section from parts of our conversation that weren't used in the context of the article. They appear on City Paper's music blog, which can be found here.  Together, they're a lengthy read, but I think what he has to say is worth the effort. Hopefully it makes sense to readers who weren't on the phone with him, like I was. And don't forget, he's appearing in Pittsburgh on Saturday afternoon FOR FREE along with Vijay Iyer. For a reminder of what their latest album sounded like, you can go back to my review of it.