Nine years ago, jazz greats Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith joined forces to release the collaborative album A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke. Both of them have done plenty of big things since then, and now they're back together on another LP. Next month, they'll release their new collaboration Defiant Life. Iyer says that the record "was conditioned by our ongoing sorrow and outrage over the past year’s cruelties, but also by our faith in human possibility."
On Defiant Life, the keyboardist Iyer and the trumpeter Smith devote two tracks to fallen leaders. Smith's "Floating River Requiem" is for Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated in 1961. Iyer dedicates "Kite" to Rafaat Alareer, a Palestinian writer who was killed in Gaza in 2023. Today, they've shared the album's 10-minute closer, a mournful and reflective track called "Procession: Defiant Life." Listen below.
Defiant Life is out 3/21 on ECM. Check out our recent Vijay Iyer interview here.
