Wadada Leo Smith Teams With Deerhoof For Live Album Benefiting Black Lives Matter

By DownBeat I Jun. 18, 2020

Deerhoof vocalist and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith
(Photo: Courtesy Of Artist)

Avant-garde trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith is teaming up with out-rock ensemble Deerhoof on a release to benefit Black Lives Matter.

To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough (Joyful Noise) is set for a July 3 release and will be available only on Bandcamp. The album’s title comes from the Walt Whitman poem “I Sing The Body Electric,” which also gave Weather Report’s 1972 studio album its name.

The Deerhoof-Smith collaboration was recorded during the 2018 Winter Jazzfest in New York at Le Poisson Rouge, with Smith appearing on the album’s last five songs and contributing trumpet flights to some of the band’s heavy riffing.

“Black Lives Matter has been doing fantastic work in keeping the rights and the liberty issues up-front in the minds of the Americans and international peoples,” Smith said in a press release. “I think that [the] BLM organization is an excellent place to give support to and to help bring democratic practices into the American society.”

Deerhoof’s drummer Greg Saunier’s ties to the jazzworld extend beyond this latest recording: In 2017, he teamed with guitarist Mary Halvorson and trumpeter/cornetist Ron Miles for the trio album New American Songbooks, Volume 1. The drummer also appears on a live set of Anthony Braxton compositions in the company of multi-instrumentalist Taylor Ho Bynum and guitarist Nels Cline on Quartet (New Haven) 2014, which was released in 2019. DB

To Be Surrounded By Beautiful, Curious, Breathing, Laughing Flesh Is Enough tracklisting:

Believe E.S.P.

Chandelier Searchlight

I Will Spite Survive

Mountain Moves

Polly Bee

Bad Kids To The Front

Snoopy Waves (with Wadada Leo Smith)

Breakup Songs (with Wadada Leo Smith)

Flower (with Wadada Leo Smith)

Last Fad (with Wadada Leo Smith)

Mirror Monster (with Wadada Leo Smith)