TUM Records continues the celebration of Wadada Leo Smith's 80th Anniversary with two outstanding new releases. The Chicago Symphonies is a magnificent four-CD box set by Wadada Leo Smith's Great Lakes Quartet. Each disc includes one of the four symphonies composed by Wadada Leo Smith for this quartet.
The first three symphonies, "Gold Symphony," "Diamond Symphony" and "Pearl Symphony," are performed by Wadada Leo Smith with saxophonist/flutist Henry Threadgill, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Jack DeJohnette whereas the fourth, "Sapphire Symphony - The Presidents and Their Visions of America," features Smith with saxophonist Jonathon Haffner, Lindberg and DeJohnette.
The idea of a symphony composed for a quartet was first presented by Don Cherry on his classic recording Symphony For Improvisers in 1966 but Wadada Leo Smith has brought this idea to the present day and broadened it to include social and political ideas into the creative space.
