Wadada Leo Smith / Joe Morris

New Music Circle and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation present a rare duo performance, pairing guitarist Joe Morris with the legendary trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith.  Both artists are influential figures of avant-garde jazz.  Together, they partner to create an open field of spontaneous, real-time composition.

This concert highlights a profound creative kinship; Joe Morris first encountered Wadada’s revolutionary music as a teenager in Connecticut, and decades later, that early inspiration has evolved into an ever-expanding collaboration.  Their acclaimed duo recording, Earth’s Frequencies (2024) captures a fully improvised, uninterrupted dialogue of trumpet and guitar.  Critics call it an essential document of two masters interacting at the highest level of musical union.

Wadada Leo Smith

Wadada Leo Smith is a pioneering trumpeter and visionary composer.  A foundational figure in avant-garde and creative music, his celebrated career spans over 70 years.  Through his signature Ankhrasmation notational system and profoundly spiritual approach to sound, Smith redefines the boundaries of improvisation and contemporary composition.  Smith’s ability to tackle profound historical and sociopolitical subjects through instrumental music is widely recognized.  He was a 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music finalist for his monumental, multi-disc masterpiece Ten Freedom Summers.  He has received numerous awards – including a Doris Duke Artist Award – and has been commissioned by major ensembles like the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Born in Leland, Mississippi, Wadada grew up immersed in the Delta blues and gospel traditions before expanding his horizons globally.  In the 1960s, he became a core member of Chicago’s revolutionary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).  Throughout his influential tenure at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), he inspired generations of musicians.  Wadada’s sonic universe is built on what he calls “Creative Music.”  He is the creator of the Ankhrasmation system – a unique symbolic language using colors, lines, and shapes in place of or alongside traditional scores.  This approach empowers seasoned improvisers to bring their own strength and presence to every performance.  His compositions are characterized by their spiritual harmony, structural space, and exploration of profound themes.

Wadada Leo Smith is a foundational figure in contemporary music education, spent over four decades mentoring generations of artists through a holistic approach to creative improvisation.  After teaching at Bard College and the Creative Music Studio in the 1970s and 1980s, he spent twenty years directing the African-American Improvisational Music program at CalArts until his retirement in 2013.  His enduring academic legacy continues through prestigious masterclasses and lectureships.

In 2016 Smith received a Doris Duke Artist Award and earned an honorary doctorate from CalArts, where he was also celebrated as Faculty Emeritus.  In addition, he received the Hammer Museum’s 2016 Mohn Award for Career Achievement “honoring brilliance and resilience.” In 2018 he received the Religion and The Arts Award from the American Academy of Religion.  In 2019 he received the UCLA Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the University of California, Los Angeles.  United States Artists named Smith a 2021 USA Fellow, and he has been selected as a 2022 Mellon Arts & Practitioner Fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration (RITM).  Earlier in 2022, he also was commissioned by the LA Philharmonic to compose two orchestral pieces.  The Jazz Journalists Association has honored Smith as their 2013 Musician of the Year, 2015 Composer of the Year, 2016 Trumpeter of the Year, 2017 Musician of the Year plus Duo of the Year for his work with Vijay Iyer, and the 2022 Trumpeter of the Year.  In 2022, Smith earned the Vision Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Smith has performed and recorded with a wide variety of musicians over the years, such as Don Cherry, Marion Brown, Carla Bley, Susie Ibarra, Spring Heel Jack, Deerhoof, Pauline Oliveros, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Han Bennik, Ikue Mori, Frank Lowe, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, John Zorn and Cecil Taylor, among many others.  In the 1990s, he formed the group with (guitarist and improviser) Henry Kaiser called Yo Miles!, which reinterpreted music from Miles Davis’s 1970s electric period alongside Smith’s own compositions.

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Joe Morris

Joe Morris is an uncompromising and visionary artist who has redefined the boundaries of modern guitar.  His playing draws heavily on the free-thinking ethos of avant-garde horn players, and utilizes clean tones and abstract intervallic systems within his improvising.  In 2026 Morris was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 30th year of NYC’s esteemed Vision Festival for his role as a key figure in the ongoing legacy of free jazz and improvised music.

His playing draws heavily on the free-thinking ethos of avant-garde horn players like Eric Dolphy and Jimmy Lyons.  This approach translates into lightning-fast single-note runs and unpredictable phrasing that feels more like a saxophone than a standard fretboard.  As a cornerstone of the international improvised music scene, Morris approaches his instrument with both rigorous intellect and deep emotional conviction.  He acts as a musical architect, engineering dynamic, non-linear frameworks that allow musicians to build spontaneous structures in the moment.  This vast creative vision extends beyond the guitar, as he frequently performs on the upright bass, banjolele, and percussion.  Beyond his prolific recording and performance career, Morris is a vital educator and author who has codified his extensive knowledge for the next generation.

He serves on the faculty of the New England Conservatory and authored the seminal book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music.  Through both his art and his pedagogy, Morris continues to map out the limitless possibilities of free improvisation.

Downbeat Magazine called guitarist Joe Morris, “the preeminent free music guitarist of his generation.” Will Montgomery, writing in WIRE magazine, called him, “one of the most profound improvisers at work in the U.S.” He was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1955.  He began playing guitar at the age of 14 first playing rock music, progressing to blues, then to jazz, free jazz and free improvisation.  He released his first record Wraparound (riti) in 1983.  He has composed over 200 original pieces of music.

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