Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith announce new duo album ‘Defiant Life,’ share a track

Veteran jazz trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and the comparatively younger but also-veteran jazz pianist Vijay Iyer have announced their second duo album, Defiant Life, which follows 2016’s A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke. It’s due out March 21 via ECM Records (pre-order). The album’s six tracks were recorded in July 2024 in Lugano with ECM co-founder Manfred Eicher producing, and Vijay says, “This recording session was conditioned by our ongoing sorrow and outrage over the past year’s cruelties, but also by our faith in human possibility.”

“Our time together, from the moment we meet right until the moment we play, is most often spent talking about the state of the world, studying histories of liberation, and sharing readings and historical references, as a means of grounding ourselves purposefully in our present,” he continues. The album description also notes that two of the songs are dedicated to “significant figures from the more and slightly less recent past – Wadada’s ‘Floating River Requiem’ to the Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba, assassinated in 1961, and Vijay’s ‘Kite’ to Palestinian writer and poet Refaat Alareer, killed in Gaza in 2023.”

Along with the announcement comes the eerie, minimal, 10-minute closing track “Procession: Defiant Life.” Check that out below.

Vijay Iyer also has tour dates coming up, including trio shows with Henry Threadgill (saxophone, flute) and Dafnis Prieto (drums) at NYC’s Jazz Gallery on May 30 & 31. All of his dates are listed below too.

Tracklist
1. Prelude: Survival (Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith) 03:25
2. Sumud (Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith) 12:19
3. Floating River Requiem (for Patrice Lumumba) (Wadada Leo Smith) 06:28
4. Elegy: The Pilgrimage (Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith) 12:45
5. Kite (for Refaat Alareer) (Vijay Iyer) 08:22
6. Procession: Defiant Life (Vijay Iyer, Wadada Leo Smith) 10:21

Vijay Iyer — 2025 Tour Dates
February 28 Alberta Rose Theater Portland OR, United States
March 01 Wortham Theater Center Houston TX, United States
March 06 Scales Art Center Winston-Salem NC, United States
March 08 Institute of Contemporary Art Boston MA, United States
March 13 The Blues Alley Washington DC, United States
March 14 The Blues Alley Washington DC, United States
March 15 Philadelpie Clef Club Philadelphia PA, United States
March 29 Big Ears Festival Knoxville TN, United States
March 30 Big Ears Festival Knoxville TN, United States
April 13 Dvorák Hall – Rudolfinum Prague, Czechia
May 30 Jazz Gallery New York NY, United States
May 31 Jazz Gallery New York NY, United States
July 04 Messe Essen Essen, Germany