“It’s an honor and a blessing to be in this universe with Mr. Smith,” said Vijay Iyer, left, of Wadada Leo Smith, right, at the March 20 release party for their latest duo recording, Defiant Life (ECM).
(Photo: Phillip Lutz)Apr 1, 2025 8:43 AM
On March 20, the night before the release of Defiant Life, the new Vijay Iyer-Wadada Leo Smith duo album from ECM, the label was throwing what their invitation termed a “private…
“I heard Lou Donaldson for the first time, and that down-home feeling of his was a gas,” said Bunky Green about one of his early influences.
(Photo: DownBeat Archive)Mar 11, 2025 1:04 PM
“Keep up the intensity, keep up the intensity!” urged the diminutive alto saxophonist. He was talking to his new group in the midst of a recording session, but he could just as well have been talking aloud to himself. For most of his life, 30-year-old Bunky Green has been keeping up the intensity of the one thing with which he is most familiar — making music.
Watching the dapper altoist at work brought to mind a statement he had made, though at the time he said it, he had shied a little at the possibly corny overtones: “I think many times…
