More than most, 2021 was a year of mixed results — an endless scroll of gains and losses, halting progress and hard retrenchment. For jazz musicians and the community of listeners around them, it brought confirmation that improvisation is a …

BEST OF 2021: DJ AND STAFF PICKS Hungry for more? Dig into 2021’s personal favorites from KCRW Music’s genre experts, airwave curators, and, of course, our listeners — because, let’s be real, one list can’t cover it all. READ MORE

Completing the top 10 were Ches Smith (leading a battalion of horns and fellow percussionists on the voodoo-inspired Path of Seven Colors); Artifacts, a lithe chamber group (Nicole Mitchell, flute; Tomeka Reid, cello; Mike Reed, drums) unafraid to fall into …

Ches Smith & We All Break, “Path of Seven Colors” (Pyroclastic Records): Given my comments above, it is fitting that my favorite jazz album of the year features top-flight instrumentalists and a terrific lead singer who, on some selections, performs …

Here’s a full accounting of nearly every album and box set title voted for by our contributors—listed here in descending alphabetical order by last name—as part of our 2021 Year in Review section. (About that “nearly”: A small percentage of …

Ches Smith, the New York drummer and composer equally devoted to avant-garde jazz and Haiti’s ancient drums-and-vocal-centred Vodou culture, set himself the fascinating challenge of intertwining those threads. The result was this thrilling mix of haunting folk vocals, conversational multi-instrumental …

What caught my ear and held it in 2021? There’s no coherent formula to the dozen albums that constitute this answer — except that they all came from a place of fierce and abiding commitment. You can hear it plain …

7 (tie). Ches Smith and We All Break – Path of Seven Colors (Pyroclastic) Everybody knows the influence on creative improvised music exerted by styles and musicians from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Trinidad. Haiti is the most populous nation …

A look at the recent two-CD set Path of Seven Colors from the drummer/improviser/composer and his octet

Drummer/composer Ches Smith got into Vodou drumming almost by accident. As a graduate student studying music at Mills College in Oakland, California, he was asked to accompany an Afro-Haitian dance class back in 2000. “I didn’t know anything about Haitian …

Drummer/composer Ches Smith got into Vodou drumming almost by accident. As a graduate student studying music at Mills College in Oakland, California, he was asked to accompany an Afro-Haitian dance class back in 2000.

From an experimental music perspective, Ches Smith brings life to sounds never before unleashed upon the jazz scene. By applying that same approach to traditional Haitian music, he brings life to music that was already established when jazz itself took its first …

From an experimental music perspective, Ches Smith brings life to sounds never before unleashed upon the jazz scene. By applying that same approach to traditional Haitian music, he brings life to music that was already established when jazz itself took its first …

Percussionists Daniel Brevil and Ches Smith combine traditional Haitian Voudou rhythms and songs with contemporary improvisation in We All Break

Remarkable….blending vocals that have a deeply uplifting quality with rhythms that are coursing with irresistible vitality…Path of Seven Colors sees him go to the next level in terms of flourishing ideas and focused application.

Sumptuous in content and appearance, Path of Seven Colors is actually an aural tale of two albums bridged by successive iterations of a singular band. As chief architect behind each, drummer Ches Smith approached the projects from refreshing positions of deference and …

These eight players had no proper systemic template to draw from, so they simply invented one. As such, it’s not a fusion of jazz and Haitian vodou music, but a reflection of the complexities and rewards resulting from close cooperation …

Jazz drummer Ches Smith has been studying Haitian music with vodou master drummers for two decades. He kept his activities confidential as he learned the vast 500-year-old polyrhythmic and complex harmonic system. He studied in Haiti and engaged with its …

ALL SONGS CONSIDERED

Jazz history is intertwined with that of the Caribbean. Those profound cultural connections were best exemplified by a trade route that once existed between Cuba, Mexico and New Orleans. But a big part of that history has to do with …

Haitian traditions inspire the percussionist’s exhilarating hybrid of melodic drums, evocative vocals and fiery improvisation