Jazz Legend Tracks Music Scene’s Changes

Creative Musicians Improvisors Forum (CMIF) co-founder Wadada Leo Smith kept the audience at Firehouse 12 on Saturday enraptured as he detailed a life rooted in musical history, from Mississippi to California to Chicago to Europe to New Haven.

The event at Firehouse 12, located at 45 Crown St., invited composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith to meet with musician Carl Testa for a conversation about music, organizations, and New Haven history. The discussion was part of the Creative Sound Cooperative, a series of events organized by Testa and sponsored by the New Haven Artist Corps with funding from the Mellon Foundation. 

Smith focused on his work as the co-founder of the Creative Musicians Improvisors Forum (CMIF), a musicians’ collective in New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford that ran from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. 

Smith started making music in 1953, when he was 12 years old, and his ​“creative music,” as he defines it, is as diverse as it is culturally relevant. Smith has collaborated with jazz and experimental music greats like Leroy Jenkins and Anthony Braxton. His prolific collection of records include Divine Love (1979), Ten Freedom Summers (2012), and America’s National Parks (2016). He was one of three finalists for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize and the winner of Down Beat’s 2013 Critics Poll for composer of the year. He also received the 2016 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and an honorary doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts. 

Testa opened the talk by playing a section of Smith’s music, recorded by percussionist and composer Gerry Hemingway. As it played, the room was as silent as a church. Smith and Testa closed their eyes to better appreciate the sound, and the audience followed suit.

Smith had a melodic, poetic way of speaking as he began by describing his early days as a musician. ​“I was born in Mississippi where the sunrise comes out of the ground,” he said. ​“But that sunrise that came out of the ground was about peace, liberty, and justice.”

From Mississippi, Smith journeyed to California, where he learned a lot about what not to do as a musician. ​“When I went west, I ran into a lot of people who said they were making art,” he said. ​“I kinda knew that wasn’t true.” Smith explained that you don’t have to talk about making art, you just do it. So that was exactly what he did.

From California, Smith went to Chicago, and from there to Europe, where he ​“realized what needed to be done musically.” At the time, he was playing with Jenkins and Braxton in the jazz ensemble the Creative Construction Company. But it was not until he met saxophonist and composer Marion Brown that he decided where he needed to be: New Haven.

“‘Come to New Haven,’” Smith recalled Brown telling him. “‘There ain’t nobody there but me. I’m lonely.’”

Despite the offer, it didn’t initially seem that anything would come from it. ​“He didn’t think I was coming because I didn’t ask for an address, I didn’t think I was coming because I didn’t ask for an address,” said Smith. But come he did, and when he arrived in New Haven, he went around knocking on the doors of houses until eventually he found Brown, who offered him a place to stay.

It was the fall of 1971, and Smith wanted to be somewhere where people didn’t have a set idea of who he was. He did his first New Haven performance in the basement of a Methodist Church by the Green. ​“There wasn’t much happening,” he recalled. Pianist and composer Anthony Davis had an active group, but it was mostly jam sessions, not real concerts. ​“They played the same thing all the time,” said Smith, who declined any invitation to join Davis’s sessions until years later.

Eventually, Smith formed a group with Davis and Wes Brown, and they had their first performance at Educational Center for the Arts (ECA). They rehearsed at what was then Calhoun College, where Davis’s father, Charles Davis, was a master. Charles Davis was the first person to read Smith’s notes and he gave him positive feedback. ​“He’s the one who organized the concept of Black studies across America,” said Smith. ​“Didn’t know that, did you?”

Testa played a second recording, of Smith and musician (and New Haven native) Gerry Hemmingway. It was a collaboration of drums and trumpet, running circles around each other as if playing an extremely cooperative game of tag, at once playful and meditative. Smith recalled recording in a theater space on Orange Street, and wondered if the recording came from there.

Around 1973, Smith created and became president of CMIF, with pianist and vibraphonist Bobby Naughton as vice president. ​“With the organization, that was the first time we established, not just performances, but workshops in schools,” said Smith. They even received a grant to run those workshops, though Smith found out that teachers discouraged kids from attending because ​“they didn’t want the students to think for themselves.”

“I know you don’t believe it, but it’s true,” he laughed.

CMIF began to reach out to other organizations for collaborations. They were also looking for places to perform.

“I had already been thrown out of the Green, I wasn’t going to go there,” said Smith.

“We can go there right now, what’s that story?” asked Testa.

Smith explained that he was invited to play with celebrated vibraphonist and percussionist Lionel Hampton, but given very little space to set up his group. Smith complained, and in response a man simply handed him a check and told him to get off the stage. But coincidentally, the mayor — Biagio ​“Ben” DiLieto — was holding a press conference on the right of the stage, so Smith, annoyed at the situation, told him about what had happened and asked him what he thought. 

The mayor got his culture director to give them another performance — but during it, a crew started taking down the stage while the musicians were still playing. Eventually, Smith packed up his instruments and left. He was never asked to play downtown again.

“I’m not afraid of anyone,” said Smith. ​“I was born free and I was born successful.”

Around that time, the Hartford Jazz Society ​“needed to be rescued,” although Smith couldn’t recall why. Smith got the society to produce some of CMIF’s projects in a collaboration: they performed at the Hartford Jazz Society’s venues so that they didn’t have to pay for a location, and combined their mailing lists so the venues were sold out.

Smith said that New Haven made CMIF possible in part because Yale offered performance spaces. Testa played a recording of Smith, Hemmingway, and Naughton on vibes — alongside an unknown guitarist — that was recorded at Yale.

Smith speculated that the guitarist may have been Michael Gregory, but he wasn’t sure. Immediately, the audience began shouting out suggestions, from Allan Jaffe to Mike Musillami. Smith said that Jaffe was a possibility.

“The biggest challenge CMIF faced was how to expand beyond just playing concerts and having workshops in schools,” said Smith.

“You have to expect to achieve something you don’t even know about. … My dream has always been to have musicians control everything.”

His idea was to build an organization around musicians, with about 400 players from all around the U.S., each contributing $5,000. Some quick audience calculation set that at a total of $2 million.

“You know what two million dollars does for you?” said Smith. ​“It changes your life. It sets up a cross-base network across the country. That network is gonna be yours … you don’t have to ask anyone in that town to hire you.” The money would go toward setting up events, and starting a paper about the organization’s activity.

“Organizations die but institutions don’t,” said Smith, citing the American Academy of Arts and Letters as an example. He urged musicians to think about the bigger picture, beyond their personal gigs.

“Our lot could be a whole lot better than it is now,” he said. ​“If you want to change stuff, you’ve got to work for it.”