#Defiand Life

[gianpaologalasi]

Vijay Iyer / Wadada Leo Smith - Defiant Life (ECM, 2025)

The pain humans found through life and the resilience are the topics of this album. Just piano (plus Fender Rhodes and electronics) and acoustic trumpet. All recorded, at least this is what seems to me, a little bit from a distance, in order to force the listener to get closer to the music and to himself. Music is different from the usual Smith's duets with other musicians, there's no davisian muezzin calls and no stylism. You can find a trumpet mostly curved and elliptical, accompanied by Iyer who is not descriptive but the perfect accompanist for a musician he worked so much with in the past. Highly recommended.