The following conversation took place at my house Sunday, June 12th, 1983, when Leo Smith was visiting Toronto to perform and record for Sackville, with my ensemble. The resulting CD has been reissued as Rastafari - Boxholder BXH 035.

Leo Smith was born in Leland, Mississippi, on the 18th of December 1941, and fits perfectly into the historical legend that produces American jazz musicians. His father was a blues musician who recorded and performed on the radio with Willie Love, and went by the professional name of "Little Bill" Wallace. Leo's early training was at Lincoln High School under the direction of Earl Jones, where he was instructed in the art of marching band music in the tradition of Sousa. While attending Lincoln High (1955-56) he formed his first jazz band.

L to R: David Prentice, Larry Potter, Bill Smith, David Lee, Leo Smith - Photograph by Djsan Klimes

Like many Americans of his generation he was inducted into the Army, and so became part of the next stage of the tradition by studying at the Army School of Music at Fort Leonard in Missouri. 1963 saw him with the Army Bands in Italy for a period of eleven months.

Upon leaving the Army he headed for Chicago (January 1967) and arrived at a time when the most important contemporary music collective, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, was gathering strength. Its members at that time included Joseph Jarman, Thurman Barker, Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, and the saxophonist Anthony Braxton, who was to become part of his next stage of development. Joined by Leroy Jenkins, they formed a trio called the Creative Construction Company and 1969 saw them performing in France. In 1970 Leo formed his group, New Dalta Ahkri, which although it has a changing personnel is still in existence. In 1971 he created Kabell Records so that he could document his own music.

Leo Smith stands among the small number of trumpet players — Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, Don Ayler — who have, in the last twenty years, reinforced and changed the tradition of the trumpet in jazz. The list of major creative musicians that have been his companions on this journey is astounding, and apart from those mentioned in this introduction, they include amongst them Oliver Lake, Marion Brown, Henry Threadgill, George Lewis and Anthony Davis.

BILL SMITH: Some years ago you told me that you would only release your music on your own record label, Kabell, because of the complications of having to deal with all the politics of commercial record producers. But in recent years you've made quite a few records on other labels like Nessa, and ECM, FMP and now Sackville. Is there some difficulty that occurred with Kabell Records that made you change your mind?

LEO SMITH: No. When I started Kabell my initial intention was just to document my music in the different stages that it went through. Then I wasn't even interested in putting out any more than one record a year, maybe one every two years because I was trying to collect and capture that period of which I was going through. But inside of doing that I realized that if music, the way I see it, was to be a living part of a mainstream of culture, I had to do something about it. My way of doing something about it was to record for so-called 'commercial' companies. And when I did that I had a great feeling for getting my music out into different places it would never go on a Kabell record. But now I've been out here for almost seven years doing that, I'm finding that I might have to go back underground. By underground I mean go under and record primarily for Kabell and a few independents I respect. The reason that I feel like going underground is that it's a dangerous course that's been laid out in this modern world in regards to who can contribute to society and at what level they will contribute to society. I found that being out in this particular market, it's not conducive to what I think it is. In other words I came out originally hoping that I would reach more people than Kabell would reach — and that did happen, I did reach more people. But somehow I didn't get that kind of push on records that I thought should be pushed. That would have made the big difference. As it stands, if music is not on a record that people can buy in different stores they won't even come to hear you. They're not even interested in experimenting, in so far as walking down the street and seeing a sign that says LEO SMITH, if they don't know him then they won't experience going to hear him. But it seems that the natural course of things would be if a person is playing music and you like the music then you'll go check out the music. Inquisitive or investigative, so to speak.

BILL: It seems when we say 'commercial' record companies, as opposed to independents, that in certain periods major companies will pick up on certain kinds of artists. For instance with CBS or Columbia, they will record Charles Ives, they recorded Harry Partch and they recorded Moondog. Theoretically they have a great deal of power as they have a large sum of money. I think the same thing happened on Arista, where there was a certain period around '76 where they suddenly became involved in recording lots of 'creative' music, and promoted it to a very high degree. We know that in that period a lot of people actually came out to hear the music. Because a major corporation was involved in it that meant it was going into popular media. So record companies were interested in promoting artists they wouldn't normally promote. Why, when they have such a wonderful thing going for them, in the United States like this, why would they choose in this period to completely ignore creative music?

LEO: Well, it's part of the system. By that I mean in regards to who controls what on the market. For example, Charles Ives — you can find Charles Ives on many labels, the same pieces over and over. You find Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, anyone of those players from, let's say early American music on back, you can find them on many labels, and that has partly to do with the political and cultural alliance that America has allied itself with. That is, it is a white country, it has a power of catering to a population that the majority is white, and they do so. In the long run I think that they lose by being so narrow and accepting who's going to contribute to society. Musical society I'm speaking about. If a company like those major companies for example would go along and pick up artists that are coming up now and develop their talent as a recording agent and push that record and push the artists. There are many things to be done. I find it unfortunate that when I recorded "Divine Love" for ECM that I never got a tour out of that. I do know that I've heard of recording companies that put groups on that are less popular, on the same bill as their most popular groups, and give them a vantage point of reaching a wider range of audience. Because of promotion. I think that there are allowances in those type of situations they can be claimed through taxes. So I'm saying that by and large a society that's built off of a certain system for marketing a particular item like music they're going to cater it to the main culture. So I think that's why you find so many Bachs, Beethovens and so forth on different records, the same pieces done hundreds of times!

BILL: The same thing applies to the people who have the power to book the music live into clubs, and to festivals and so on. Do you think it's the same thing?

LEO: I feel it's the same thing. Because by and large they are only going to produce that which the recording companies are producing. They are a reverse mirror of what's happening out there with the recording companies. I've been playing music 27 years, and I've studied for most of those years in the sense that I do a lot of independent research and I read a lot of different types of things to try to see what's the best advantage for me as a musician. In those 27 years I've developed a craft, an art of music, if you will, that reflects my feelings totally personally. It's an individual music, it deals with a lot of types of systems and you can see there's a predecessor for that. There's George Russell, he came up with a lot of systems you see. He has basically the same problem, he doesn't give a lot of performances. Cecil Taylor… So it's like back up on the road again to rebuild a new audience.

BILL: In this situation we are talking about starting again. In the mid-seventies it seemed so fantastic what was going on, there was so much activity with live music, and audiences just loved the adventure of the new music. I'm sure that in the periods before with Ornette, Cecil and Coltrane the same problems existed; but I'm not quite sure in my mind why the audiences disappeared, because they seemed like very intelligent people who came to those events. I mean they aren't like a bunch of 'credit-card jazz-drunks', they are really intelligent people investigating something. Yet they seemed to have disappeared.

LEO: Well, what I think is one of the strongest points in a situation like that is that people become sort of disillusioned after a while when they can't find a proper avenue to express themselves in. Once that takes place you're going to find that you're hurting yourself into what you're doing as an artist. The listener has the same responsibility to try to seek out a continuously evolving horizon in terms of music. But in between that transition from the 60s into the 70s and the 80s we've had a complete reverse in the political and philosophical consciousness of the world. It's a conservative world, everything has rebirthed into getting rid of all the things that people think have value. Like jobs for instance, or being able to go once or twice to a movie, go out for lunch. You see people are suffering in this country. Not this country, this world. People are suffering in this world and no one seems to care. Can that suffering be relieved by music? I think it can. I think music has the power to heal and by that I mean psychically heal because all creation in its reality is a vibration. Music creates a vibration that can stimulate any system and any kind of manifestation be it physical, like a concrete wall or a human body.

BILL: But wouldn't it be true that the situation is actually in reverse because what happens is that in reality the information given out to people through popular media is actually on a very low and mundane level. Newspapers in general are very bad to anything creative. Here we are being paranoid about who we are. I mean they don't cover the great painters, the writers, the poets or whatever. Unless they're traditionally acceptable.

LEO: They are part of the system. They constitute the reinforcement on a daily basis of the system. I just happen to think that it's a sad shame that humankind has evolved to a point where war seems to be the ultimate thrill in life. Those kinds of wars, whether they be psychological, spiritual, or material, hurt humankind. There's so much less concern with the true identity. For example most people would align themselves with your political proposition and then when you go to meet them in their own neighbourhood, their own community, or see their daughter, or their sister or their mother, it becomes a different thing. But if they see you in the street and you say, "Yes, I'm for the strike" or "Let's go up and join together and defeat this particular group or that one", they're for those things. But when it comes to the real problem of society, which is a loss of love, a loss of concept of being human… and I think that's reflected in a society as ours is, today.

BILL: But to communicate this kind of philosophy to people…

LEO: Song is the best way, in these days. By song I mean words and music, is what I'm trying to say. It's one of the most convenient ways of transmitting types of ideas that could evolve in civilization. Granted, that's not what is being pushed. Understand that.

BILL: But based in the song and rhythmic band accompaniment idea, like rock music is that with quite mundane lyrics mostly and a very, very fixed rhythm. I think that in general people are being programmed through the media to accept this kind of phenomenon. I can't see that after all these years of trying to change that idea how there would be any way of moving into the area. For example, a popular band in this period would be Oliver Lake and Jump Up. But it seems to me that although that is getting a lot of air play and very large audiences Oliver also plays with the World Saxophone Quartet. And somehow that doesn't transmit to the next group.

LEO: Instrumental music is abstract. I don't care if a man in Africa plays it on a big bass zither, or someone in Tibet plays it on a double reed instrument or someone in Harlem plays it on a tin can. That idea of creativity explores the possibility of many realms and the song tradition brings it back down to a level that people can naturally understand, like language, like nature. We create instruments but the voice is a creation of Jah (God), you see. Instruments we create, that's our creation, that's our imagination which became a reality. But the voice was put in by the Creator. So I'm saying that more people are able to identify with a song, or let's say with a text, than they are with a purely instrumental creation. Because it's too abstract for them in the sense that this society has created this type of being. It's not natural for it to be that way.

BILL: So there's a separation between language and sound?

LEO: Yes, but that's not natural, though. That's unnatural.

BILL: I think that's really unnatural because language and sound are the same thing!

LEO: That's right!

BILL: So why, with the right kind of education through the media, would writers in newspapers for example write about music they're not actually involved in, and there are actually lots of writers who would really like to do that. So why in this idea that we're a democratic society is it possible that an editor of a popular newspaper could stop a writer writing about something that's creative? I mean, they're calling him a 'writer'. How can we move outside of the principle of the 'popular' press, popular media… how is it possible to attract, in this period of rebuilding the music, a new kind of audience?

LEO: I think for myself I have found the key and that has to do with my conversion to Rastafarianism which is the concept that Haille Selassie is the creator of the universe. I've found that through this level of mystical and philosophical conversion that I've developed what I call ritual dramas. Inside these dramas I try to demonstrate some of the forces that are at work in the world today. For example, my "Killing of the Prophet", which was performed four times in April of this year. It's a story about the coming of the prophet as witnessed through Marcus Garvey, who says "Look to Africa from which will be crowned a king who will be our redemption." Well, in this particular ritual drama that message is delivered. Through it being delivered, the evil forces cuts her down, which takes place with the female dancer, which is Mother Earth, the protective force of the universe, and the lion, which is the manifestation of the prophet. Inside of there, I'm in this cloth bag and I'm dancing and Sheri Carwell, the dancer with New Dalta now, she's dancing in live form, in her form. At some point there's a disruption which is the force of evil which cuts down this lion of the prophet. Everything comes to a halt, supposedly, but it doesn't because the moment that one drops another one arises. So once the supposed killing takes place the music drops, and immediately comes back again, and the dance begins again to signify that you cannot stop truth, neither can you kill that which you didn't create, and inside that is the message of who should level in terms of the force of good and evil. Now, in that I'm adding song, drama (because I have actors sometimes) , dance, and musicians who also participate in the acting and the songs. I think that if I could get this type of music on the right type of media, which I think is video film, I would attract a much wider audience. I think that in this period that's where it's moving because Anthony Braxton is dealing with something he calls "Ceremonial Pieces". Roscoe (Mitchell) and Tom (Buckner) and them, they are doing a mixture of a lot of different things, with voice and double reeds and stuff. Muhal (Richard Abrams) is doing stuff with drama inside of it. I'm talking about colleagues that I'm working with often. So I feel a change has taken place that will wipe out this abstractness that people associate with instrumental music. If that can take place then I think we're on the road to redeveloping and rebuilding our audience. I feel that this is my only chance in this particular period to do that, to rebuild one.

BILL: So, in a way the printed media, like the popular newspaper, is not of much use because it can't involve itself in this.

LEO: No, not really.

BILL: And radio is not that much use because it hasn't actually happened in its entirety. So there is a great possibility of video, isn't there?

LEO: Yes.

BILL: Is the possibility for video because the music is going with the theatre and the drama and the words into a semi-visual theatrical presentation?

LEO: Yes! If Wagner had had similar types of equipment in that time, think what it would be like. Or if people in Africa had those kinds of things when their rituals and ceremonies took place, think where musical creation would be! It would be far more advanced than where it is now. That's exactly what I mean when I say that a society like this does not allow all its people to participate in the development of humankind as a whole being. They are not going to allow us to explore it that way so a new media has arisen that we can take advantage of.

BILL: Isn't there a danger though that once people can buy all these video cassettes of all these ceremonies and rituals that they won't actually come out to hear the music in live performance? That the music will become like classical music?

LEO: No, no. You see, creative music and world music will never become like classical music. But with regards to that question, I don't think it will stop people from coming out to see you perform. Take the movies. When television came in people thought that television would attract audiences and take it away from the movies but, in fact, there's audiences for both levels and I think that in the video field that will be demonstrated as well. You know, inside the home people are getting into the video games and the Aquarian age is already beginning which means a higher level of consciousness. So these technological tools that have been developed at this stage could really be used to give a greater satisfaction in terms of our creative life.

BILL: When you talk, you actually talk differently to what is the world opinion of what is going on, because you talk about this thing going forward with all the people you know (thankfully I'm one of them), you talk about it as a sort of new, flowering period and you emphasize this new awareness of people. But politically in the world Ronald Reagan is a conservative, Margaret Thatcher is a conservative, the Japanese and the Germans have conservative leaders, Canada is rapidly approaching a conservative period which is quite the reverse of what you're talking about.

LEO: Exactly, but the trick is all the stuff that is happening in terms of the conservative thrust makes the combat greater. It's showing the level of concentration now that means that this system must fall. I feel that in the next 25 years we will find that the world will change more drastically than it has in all the time of so-called recorded history. I feel that this music speaks about that time. I think there is a certain feeling in humankind about flowers, because inside a flower you have a scent, it's almost like a demonstration of humankind, a flower has an odour that transfers far from the flower, the flower goes in and closes up and comes back out. These cycles that we're going through are not just going in circles, they are evolving I would believe. I think that we all are evolving as a people. I know that out there is a so-called 'another world', and that what's happening out there is really tight and hard now. We are all talking about rebuilding our audiences. I think it makes it greater. I think that the struggle that's happening right now will be hastened by such drastic concentration of conservatism.

BILL: Well, in this conservatism however is a terrible thing happening which is a 'call to arms'. Missiles and nuclear weapons and so on. America seems to be a major antagonist in this chess game of war and yet it seems not to deal with the actual reality of the terrible consequences of such an action. None of the Americans that I personally know are part of this idea. Internationally, the only countries that are staying with socialism, with the idea of people's democracy, are also failing in this period. France is a very good example, I suspect, with the terrorists…

LEO: …East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Poland, all of them are examples.

BILL: Yes, it's very bad. Is it possible that, in this period, all the old concepts of politics are now out-dated like everything else is?

LEO: Obsolete. Totally obsolete. And that bugger that they call the United Nations is a sad dream that doesn't have a bone to stand on. You're right, it is sad. You know I find that I have one song called "Peace Isn't Possible Without Love" and I wrote this piece when I went to tour in Japan last October. I went to the museum in Hiroshima and there I went to the Peace Museum that they have, and they had a sculptural model of some people, like a woman, a child and a man, and in the background was an obliteration of some explosive stuff that had taken place and from their hands and from their nails skin was hanging down that long, and these people were not in the direct blast. They were miles and miles away and it just totally wiped them out. So I got real heart feelings in that place, man, real heart vibrations. So I went back and I started thinking, "Why should something like this happen"? You know people talk about "I love you" and it ain't happening, but when someone comes up to you and says "We're going to have peace in the world", they've got to be kidding. There's no peace in the world, there's no love. Love precedes peace. They don't teach peace in high school, they don't teach love. People do not teach young kids, young adults the concept of love and peace.

BILL: They do internally in households.

LEO: In households, yes. But not as a major thrust of this society. Because if we teach that, there wouldn't be this threat of a major war as we have now upon us. In South Africa, what's going to happen in that situation? I'm warned that I'm supposedly feeling nonviolent, but I'm not nonviolent. I look at South Africa as being one of the most degrading situations in all of existing times, when a man or woman born into creation has to carry passes and be out of town before dark and work in the mines, and they just crack down on them any time they want to. That's degrading. That's dangerous. And in the midst of all this war that people are talking about I think that that land will not go without war.

BILL: Is it possible that by you travelling around, I mean you've been to Japan, you played with Japanese players, playing traditional instruments, not playing Western instruments, and you played in Germany and East Germany with Peter Kowald and Babe Sommer, and now you've come here and played with us in our collective. Is it possible that by moving about more without thinking too much about the financial gain as long as we can all live, is it a good thing to do, that we should now start moving about amongst all the cultures and try to play with each other and discover what it is we do.

LEO: Yes, I mean the greatest sense of learning is to experience someone else's experience. If you can do that, I think you've hit upon something that is really great. Quite often a lot of people will take the other side of the coin and say that I've been playing for 27 years so why should I play for a little bit of money when I should get more. Well, if you look at the scene, I can't get more. Of course I should get more so I'm in a strange predicament right now. I have to go out and rebuild an audience. Because in the midst of this transition from the 70s to the 80s most of us have lost our audiences, not just me. It's people like Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, all of us, we've all lost our audience.

BILL: Obviously when you travel around you think about the situations you're going to. I mean you've played in Communist-bloc countries, in Europe, Canada, America, etc. I suspect under no circumstances would you agree to play in South Africa.

LEO: No, none whatsoever. Only if there's independence, if they free the Africans that's there, and by that I mean making a collective society of one man, one vote.

BILL: But you do know of course that in this period there's a lot of demonstrations against musicians who are going there to play. Why would a musician who makes his music out of Black-American origin, like Chick Corea who's one of the people doing this, be naive enough to actually go there and record and play for segregated audiences? I can't imagine myself doing that. Why would another musician?

LEO: I don't know. There's no way possible to justify a trip to South Africa to play there, no way possible. They could give me all the mines there and I would not go. All of them.

It hurts the struggle too. You know, people in South Africa are dying, man, you know, getting killed just to gain the bare minimum of so-called civil liberties. A man or woman that lives in a society that can endorse that kind of policy I can't see where their existence is of much value. I'm speaking purely of art, where the art is of much value. I'm not talking innovative or creative-wise, I mean they're using their art like it has no value, you see. I think that all art has the value to change people and it plays a positive force in creation. To use it in a segregated audience is outrageous.

BILL: Is there some idea that the music should be more of a community music like it was in its origins? Original musics were for specific reasons, you know, like court music and kraal music.

LEO: Yes, that will come back. That's what the ritual dramas, that's what this area that we're all in right now, the ritual aspect of music means, it's going to reawaken that kind of consciousness in people's psyche. There are all kinds of rituals, people think of rituals mostly as being religious and so forth, but in fact we see rituals every day on television. The news, the evening news, is a ritual, you see. So that level of consciousness that has been evolved can be explored on a much higher level than the six o'clock news. I think it would bring a change in their life. For myself, I like to see people sit down in the evening, or a Sunday afternoon or something, after eating, sit down and put on a videotape of a ritual drama and after playing sit and talk about it because it has a lot of mystical and symbolic levels involved in it that go much higher than what is actually said or played or heard, or seen.

BILL: This is like going back into tradition end discovering old traditions.

LEO: Well, like Harry Partch. Harry Partch to me was a very important musician and I call him a world musician. Sun Ra is very important to me, I call him a world musician. The AACM, they're all important to me, I call them world musicians. Inside of this world manifestation there's a real twist taking place, something that's going to bring a dramatic expectation on performers and to a high excitement. I find in those people, like Sun Ra and Harry Partch, I find that kind of excitement. Like I take Harry Partch records or Sun Ra records that I know are dealing with particular types of rituals that are purely particular to them and I can cut the lights down and I can sit there and deal with it, actually deal with it. I feel that that's the level that this society will begin to reach. I think that those people are like pathfinders in that area. But I believe in fact that it is going to integrate into all other areas eventually but controlled by a musical mind, controlled through a musical composition or a musical improvisation. I'm not talking about theatre and I'm not talking about performance pieces and I'm not talking about theatre pieces. I'm talking about ritual dramas, you see what I'm talking about?