Drummer Matt Wilson Put the 'Play' in Playing Jazz With His Quartet

Drummers have a reputation of being a little "different" than the rest of the players on the bandstand. There are jokes about drummers not being real musicians and how machines do their job better, often told by drummers themselves. No matter the genre, these musicians inarguably tend to march to the beat of their own making.

So with this in mind it shouldn't be all that surprising that by the end of drummer Matt Wilson's set with his quartet, he had donned a wig, readjusted his cymbal stands so they stood ridiculously high (as metal drummers do), and temporarily augmented his modest drum set with an extra tom. It was a sight as he played a bad metal parody, twirling his sticks as he went. The song, 'Schoolboy Thug,' was the finale of a two-day run at New York City's The Jazz Standard to celebrate the release of the quartet's new 'That's Gonna Leave a Mark.'

The band -- which also included bassist Chris Lightcap and reedists Andrew D'angelo and Jeff Lederer -- egged on Wilson as he went completely over the top. On the wall behind the band were name tags for the band members. Yet for all the silliness of the closing tune and Wilson's general demeanor, he is a very heavy dude who played in Dewey Redman's band and recorded with Lee Konitz. Possessing an extremely flexible style, Wilson is generally regarded as a first-call drummer for bop, post-bop and avant-garde, and he's even backed a few standards singers since hitting the scene in the late '80s.

Though Wilson leads two different groups (Arts and Crafts, his other group, leans more straight-ahead), the overall sound of the Matt Wilson Quartet is rooted in the classic sound of Ornette Coleman's early-'60s work -- Wilson is a big fan of famed Coleman drummer Billy Higgins -- with some John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy thrown in by the two-saxophone front line of the band.

The freewheeling set opened with the aptly titled 'Raga,' which was a slow-building piece that drew upon the Indian classical song form. The song grew out of a four-part handbell intro that led to a thoughtful solo on alto sax from D'angelo. When the song got cooking, it rode a modal progression while the bass sat upon a one-chord riff. Though not exactly the stuff you'd expect in a jazz club, the band played it beautifully.

From there the quartet went straight into 'Celibate Oriole' from the new album. The angular bop tune with a churning rhythm had the distinct feel of classic Ornette in the melody before Lederer's honking and clucking solo pushed the song into more postmodern R&B territory. The band then brought it down for a slow ballad titled 'Don't Blame Me' that featured lingering pauses at the end of each measure, hinting at a halting late-night conversation where a couple is trying to work things out but is unsure of the outcome.

From there the set continued to ping-pong between different styles and flavors. There was the straightforward groove of new song 'Area Man' and a playful New Orleans tinge to '25 Years of Rootabagas.' While brief shards of sound that punctuated new song 'Led Head,' the most conventional song in the set was the John Lewis tune 'Two Bass Hit,' which was popularized by Miles Davis. The bebop classic turned into a hard-swinging vehicle for everyone to take a turn soloing.

The great Horace Silver named one of his albums 'Jazz Has a Sense of Humor.' Whether he is aware of that title or not, Matt Wilson seems to make a point of proving this in his music and his approach to it. Yet he walks a fine line in his work that is impressive on more than one level. Whereas many jazz musicians and even more jazz fans tend to align themselves with a particular school of thought (uptown vs. downtown, bebop vs. fusion, etc.) this composer and drummer goes out of his way to prove that it's all valid and can all come together in one set. Beyond that, he and his band have a good time doing it, which makes perfect sense: People play music because it's supposed to be fun. Some tend to forget this lesson, but thankfully we have the Matt Wilson Quartet to remind us when we lose our way.


New This Week at All About Jazz:

INTERVIEWS

Fred Hersch: No Limits
Theo Travis: From Prog to Jazz and Back Again

JAZZ PRIMER

Miles Davis: Unlimited Miles

CD REVIEWS

Jan Garbarek Group, Dresden
Paul Motian, On Broadway Vol. 5
George Colligan, Come Together
Vijay Iyer Trio, Historicity

JAZZ SESSION PODCAST

John Patitucci

Working in conjunction with All About Jazz, Tad Hendrickson is Spinner's weekly jazz columnist.