Trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, improviser and educator, Wadada is one of the great figures in jazz, and the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) a musician-led institution that seeks the creative and representational control of its music and education. His music, grounded in a historical poetics, suggests what can be done as racism, poverty and justice intersect; bearing witness to a struggle built upon patience, collective action, a thousand acts: “None of these pieces are meant simply to be listened to.”