In the liner notes for A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke, pianist Vijay Iyer notes that he and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith would often become a sub-segment of the quartet in which the two played. Following their collaboration in New York City in 2015, ECM chief Manfred Eicher brought the two master artists together to make their unique chemistry a matter of record. At its core, the album is a suite dedicated to the late, influential Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi who was known for her drawings and photography.

In his prolific career, Smith has twice before recorded as a leader on the ECM label, first with 1979's Divine Love and fourteen years later with Kulture Jazz (1993). Both highly-regarded recordings were early benchmarks in a catalogue that has increased in relevancy over the years and produced epic collections such as Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012) which was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Iyer came to ECM following earlier associations with labels like Pi Recordings and ACT Music and more than two-dozen recordings as a leader or co-leader. With his ECM debut Mutations (2014), Iyer also enacted a more compositional approach, broadening his often methodological improvisation skills. Strip away the string quartet and in many ways, Mutations paved the way for A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke.

It may be challenging to name top-of-mind piano-trumpet duos, but they are not so unusual.