Customer Reviews

Wake Up! (To What's Happening)

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"Wake Up (To What's Happening)" is drummer Matt Wilson's second recording with his Arts and Crafts ensemble. Commonly regarded as his more straight-ahead group (with his dual sax fronted quartet being his more adventurous unit) they actually cover a wide swath of territory, so much so that one might ask which group is actually the more adventurous. A question irrelevant even in it's own asking, as all of Matt Wilson's projects are overflowing with creativity and exploration, no matter who's in the line-up.

A seemingly incongruous mixture of styles, the Arts and Craft's ensemble tackles everything from straight ahead acoustic ballads to covers of droning electric proto-fusion. Despite coming off as a bit of a mish-mash, the eclectic combination still works. Where some jazz artists work in a variety of genres across an album, but manage to find the common denominator between opposing styles, Wilson throws caution to the wind and lets his group take each piece in a different direction, yet always to it's best effect.

The traditional line-up of trumpet, piano, bass and drums is sometimes augmented by hammond organ. It is with this instrument at the forefront that the group often engages in its most adventurous excursions. Ingenious covers by Tony Williams Lifetime, "There Comes A Time," and Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, "Silence" are prime examples of the realization of this approach. Other standards, such as Jaki Byard's "Aluminum Baby" and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Luiza" are given new life on this session and sound as fresh today as when they were conceived in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Fleshed out with a few ballads, a sprightly Afro-Cuban folk tune, "Cuban Carnival Song" a burn-out tune, "Fast Edd" and a few swinging bop tunes, "Wake Up (To What's Happening)" is a fine addition to Matt Wilson's discography.

This latest cd by Matt Wilson's Arts and Crafts is a "stew" of many different musical styles and amazingly almost all of them work great. Wilson seems to be everywhere these days. From his appearences with the Jazz Composers Collective[check out Ben Allison's "Buzz"]to many other sideman appearences too numerous to list. He is simply an "in demand" drummer who also happens to be a composer. On "Wake Up" Wilson surround himself with an interesting band dominated by the great Larry Goldings on piano and organ[check out his excellent penned tune "Sticky Mack"]and Terrel Stafford on trumpet[excellent on Bobby Watson's latest "Horizon Reassembled"]. Other tunes worth sampling is the "church like" sound of Charlie Haden's "Silence" and Wilson's drumming tour de force on "Fast Edd". If you enjoy "Wake Up" you may want to check out Wilson's "Humidity" and "Smile" which are a little more of "challenging" listening but worth the effort in my opinion. Otherwise "Wake Up" and discover Matt Wilson. Reccommended.