For his third CD, drummer
Wilson and his quartet are all over the improvisational landscape, and they are having a good time doing it. Saxophone histrionics, frantic passages, introspective moments, the ever pungent drumming of
Wilson shading and inventing new ways to swing, it's all here, and more. Joined by tenor and soprano saxophonist
Joel Frahm and altoist and bass clarinetist
Andrew D'Angelo,
Wilson and bassist
Yosuke Inoue provide every rhythmic shape and stance for the reed players to fully cut loose, and they do in a harmonic wonderland very inspired by
Eric Dolphy. There are familiar musical signposts. "Strangers In The Night" is so mysteriously understated in a no-time feel it is not recognizable until the end. "I Found A New Baby" is oom-pah-pah
Kurt Weill circus-like and frenetic, and
Thelonious Monk's "Boo Boo's Birthday" is done in a pretty straight, soulful, half-tempo take, until the garrulous ending. They also do a supersonic be-bonic, faster than the original version of
John Coltrane's "Grand Central." "Wooden Eye" is a back-and-forth blazingly out to blusily swinging two headed monster, "Big Butt" a free funk with the Dolphy twins wailing, and the duck call like honking and churning latin and hard bop rhythms are orgy-like on "Making Babies." At their most hilarious on "Go Team Go!," the band romps through a freaky instrumental fan-fare, then campily paraphrases the stair-step sports "charge, " "Take Me Out (i.e. OUT!) To The Ballgame," and the nine clap progession that precedes "Let's Go," bassist Inoue rattling the grandstands. Funny! There are more meditative moments like "A Dusting Of Snow,"
Wilson softly and deliberately tossing out waves of wafting spontaneous percussionistic flakes, the beautiful alto-soprano tandem for "Daymaker," and the dirge-like caravan mode during "Cinderblock Shelter."
Wilson is making some of the more challenging original group material out there in the latter '90s. Those who enjoy bass clarinet need to pick up on D'Angelo, he's playing a lot of it on this CD, and Frahm is pretty hot too. It's short of 47 minutes long, a detriment for long winded improvisors as these, but it's a concentrated time frame, chock full of music that should bring happiness to even the most sour and dour avant mavens. Recommended.