Trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith’s Ten Freedom Summers is the work of a lifetime by one of jazz’s true visionaries, a kaleidoscopic, spiritually charged collection of 19 compositions inspired by the struggle for African American freedom. Triumphant and mournful, visceral and philosophical, searching, scathing and relentlessly humane, Smith’s music embraces the civil rights era’s milestones while celebrating its heroes and martyrs. Blending improvised and notated music in a synthesis of European classical, African American, and creative music practices, the music speaks in a singular, clear and powerful voice unlike any in contemporary music.

Recorded shortly after the music’s October 2011 world premiere in Los Angeles, this four-CD set features one of Smith's most significant working groups, The Golden Quintet with the composer on trumpet, pianist Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg, and drummers Susie Ibarra and Pheeroan akLaff, as well as the nine-member, Los Angeles-based contemporary classical group, Southwest Chamber Music, under the direction of Grammy-winning conductor Jeff von der Schmidt. It documents a stunning, career-capping accomplishment by a musical giant in the midst of an astonishing creative surge.

As Larry Blumenfeld wrote in the Wall Street Journal after attending the premiere: “Ten Years in Three Nights: A Decade's Triumph… Ten Freedom Summers was as striking a display of his expansive vision and his vitality. He still plays trumpet as he always has: with little vibrato and a tone that can be either boldly declarative or soft to the point of breaking… Mr. Smith had made his own statement through instrumental music. And it sounded complete.”

Written over the past 34 years, each of the 19 compositions addresses a different facet of the Civil Rights movement of 1954–1964. The music honors heroes and events in a transformative period of political and cultural liberation, a period that not only shaped all aspects of Smith’s life and art, but all of America as well.

With its emotional depth and power, formal intricacy and elegance, and clarity of execution, Ten Freedom Summers can take its place among the landmark compositions of the past dedicated to the Civil Rights movement, such as John Coltrane’s “Alabama” and Max Roach’s We Insist: Freedom Now! More than any album in recent memory, these four CDs of ambitious, towering music-by turns majestic, tragic, joyful, and contemplative-feel like one for the ages, an album that generations of future listeners will turn to for inspiration and spiritual refreshment. A classic of American music is born.

“Ten Freedom Summers was as striking a display of his expansive vision and his vitality. He still plays trumpet as he always has: with little vibrato and a tone that can be either boldly declarative or soft to the point of breaking… Mr. Smith had made his own statement through instrumental music. And it sounded complete."
- Larry Blumenfeld, Wall Street Journal

"Five stars. Although there are many outstanding recordings in Smith's canon, it's hard to avoid calling this his masterpiece."
- Barry Witherden, BBC Music Magazine

“Four stars. Smith’s brash and plangent trumpet and freewheeling improv from his Golden Quintet merges with a written score delivered by the nine-member Southwest Chamber Music ensemble. Full of melodrama, pathos and hope, it is the veteran trumpeter’s defining statement.”
- Mike Hobart, Financial Times

“Four stars. That mystically inclined trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith has finally produced his magnum opus, a four-hour mediation on defining moments in the Civil Rights movement.”
- Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph 

"If one had to answer quickly what work will matter most this year in American music (as if matters of mattering arose with some regularity), Wadada Leo Smith's Ten Freedom Summers would trip readily to the tongue."
- Stuart Broomer, Point of Departure

"This may as well turn out to be the most challenging (and emotionally rewarding) release of 2012."
- Bret Saunders, Denver Post

“Four stars. Smith’s playing runs the gamut from slow-bubbling daubs to stark, keening lines, and its force belies the old saw that age is unkind to brass players’ chops.”
- Bill Meyer, DownBeat

“The music of Ten Freedom Summers suite is stirringly beautiful in its own right… Manages to pay tribute to the Civil Rights Movement in a wholly original, wordless way that also holds up as an astounding aesthetic achievement.”
- Michael Casper, Oxford American

“The crowning achievement of trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith’s distinguished career to date.”
- John Sharpe, All About Jazz