Leo Smith At Sky Theatre, Abrams Planetarium, East Lansing, October 15

Leo Smith

At Sky Theatre, Abrams Planetarium, East Lansing, October 15

The residence outside East Lansing of master musician Roscoe Mitchell (Art Ensemble of Chicago) has had an incredible effect on the Michigan State University music community, particularly among a set of young black student musicians known as the Creative Arts Collective.  Now in their second year, the CAC has organized and presented a smashing series of four concerts of improvisational music and poetry this fall at the Abrams Planetarium, featuring the compositions and improvisations of their own members as well as guest artists (and fellow brass players) Lester Bowie (also of the Art Ensemble) and Leo Smith (another alumnus of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians founded in Chicago by Muhal Richard Abrams in 1966).

     The October 15th concert we had the good fortune to attend presented the compositions of Leo Smith as performed by the CAC, with Smith conducting and soloing on

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Leo Smith

continued from page 16 .... several brass instruments, including trumpet, flugelhorn, cornet, pocket trumpet, and a Pan-like apparatus with small multiple horn bells.  The works presented ranged from "The Art of Thematic Variation (12-16)," a piece for solo brass played against the silence by the composer; to a duet for Harmon-muted trumpet and amplified acoustic guitar (brilliantly played by Spencer Barefield) called "The Art of Thematic Figuration (17-18); to a trio for trombone (William Townley), cornet (Raymond Brooks), and flugelhorn (Smith) titled "Idadi"; to pieces utilizing different combinations of the entire CAC ensemble.  The musicians, all of whom played and reacted to the improvisational settings created by Smith exceptionally well, also included Tony Holland (saxophones), Neal McAlpin (clarinet), James Hill (bass), Dushun Mosley (drums), Louis Haynie (drums & congas), and Kevin Wilson (congas).

     The opening piece was the major composition of the evening, a multi-textured, delightfully various work titled "Mutumishi" which was written in 1970 and not performed until this concert.  Solos by each CAC member and Smith, a number of them unaccompanied, were set into a shifting panorama of backing motifs played by the collective as a whole or by varying combinations of musicians.  The guitar-bass dialogue between Spencer Barefield and James Hill was especially moving, bringing to mind (and soul) the Eric Dolphy-Charles Mingus musical conversations of fifteen years ago.

     Other works performed included "In the Garden of Soul," "Dalta Rhythms (107)." "wmukl-D," and the just-composed "Brasss."  The concert was recorded (with Roscoe Mitchell himself at the controls), hopefully for later release, and with any luck Detroit and Ann Arbor audiences will enjoy the opportunity to "stand under" the intellectually and emotionally stimulating music of Leo Smith one day soon.  (His last appearance in the area was with an ensemble including saxophonists Marion Brown and Maurice Mclntyre and bassist-trombonist Lester Lashley at the Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival in 1972.)

     The Creative Arts Collective must be warmly commended for their taste and adventurousness in producing the Smith recital at MSU--for their activities as a whole! --and readers who would like to receive advance notices of their future productions may reach them at P.O. Box 913, East Lansing, Ml 48823.           --JS