Wadada Leo Smith: America’s National Parks album review – stormy studies of nature, environment and ownership

Trumpeter, composer and thought-provoker Wadada Leo Smith likes to blur the lines between composition and improvisation, even inventing his own notation system, Ankhrasmation, to better communicate his intentions. This latest work for his Golden Quintet – trumpet, piano, cello, bass and drums – is a starkly original six-part suite about the US National Parks Service, founded 100 years ago this year. But anyone expecting sweeping cinematic scores summoning the grandeur of nature will be barking up the wrong sequoia. Smith's turbulent, unsettling compositions, which artfully exploit his group's unusual instrumental combination, are more about issues of ownership and the future of the planet, which leaves you admiring Smith's fierce sense of social justice (as well as his darkly ruminative trumpet-playing) and wondering what on earth has happened to all the other protest musicians? cuneiformrecords.com