Ancestors by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo represents not only a collaboration between two master musicians but also a unique meeting of one of the leading proponents of creative improvised music in America with a legendary representative of this music on its mother continent, Africa. Both Smith and Moholo-Moholo have been heading their own groups for nearly five decades but this recording also continues a long line of duo recordings by each of them, in Smith's case, particularly with drummers (Ed Blackwell, Adam Rudolph, Günter "Baby" Sommer, Jack DeJonnette et al.) and, in Moholo-Moholo's case, particularly with pianists (Irene Schweizer, Cecil Taylor, John Law, Keith Tippett, Stan Tracey, Marilyn Crispell et al.). Although the two first played together already in the 1970s and occasionally since that time, this is their first recording together.