Album: Wadada Leo Smith & Tumo, Occupy the World (TUM)

Trumpeter Smith is on a mighty roll.

His Ten Freedom Summers – a top-three finalist for the Pulitzer Prize – distilled a lifetime's experience, from Elmore James playing blues with his dad to six decades at the sharp end of the US avant-garde. This collaboration with Finland's improvising orchestra Tumo is dedicated to the international Occupy movement, and Smith's five long pieces over two CDs create a continuously diverting sound-world whose heavy gravity recalls Varèse.