* Wadada Leo Smith : trumpet
* Michael Gregory Jackson : guitar
* Henry Kaiser : guitar
* Brandon Ross : guitar
* Lamar Smith : guitar
* Bill Laswell : electric bass
* Pheeroan akLaff : drums
* Adam Rudolph : percussion
Recorded by Robert Musso, with assistant engineer Dan Fyte,
at MSR Studios in New York City on March 6 and 7, 2014.
Additional recording by James Dellatacoma at Orange
Music Sound Studios in West Orange, New Jersey.
Smith often goes epic. He opens Najwa with the anthemic, sixteen minute
"Ornette Coleman's Harmolodic Sonic Hierographic Forms: A Resonance Change In
The Millennium" to get your attention, then helps you find religion with the
fourteen minute "Ohnedaruth John Coltrane: The Master Of Kosmic Music And His
Spirituality In A Love Supreme." The relatively brief title tune is an ode to
love lost, a gorgeous soundtrack to a dream, or a portal to a parallel
dimension, before the disc's tribute aspect reemerges with a nod to the late
drummer, and sometimes participant in Smith's Golden Quartet, Ronald Shannon
Jackson, on the dark-hued and insistently rhythmic "Ronald Shannon Jackson: The
Master Of Symphonic Drumming and Multi-Sonic Rhythms, Inscriptions Of Rare
Beauty." Smith's love letter to vocalist Billie Holiday closes the set. Titled,
in typical Smithian fashion, "The Empress, Lady Day: In a Rainbow Garden, with
Yellow-Gold Hot Springs, Surrounded By Exotic Plant And Flowers," it wraps this
superb recording up with great beauty and a sacred serenity.