Onstage, a Single Band, With a Split Personality

By NATE CHINEN
Matt Wilson unveiled an expanded version of his working group at Iridium on Wednesday night — or maybe it was two groups, depending on the whim of the moment. Near the end of the first set, it was possible to imagine a borderline across the stage, as half of the musicians played a Mozart string quartet and the other half gradually muscled in, urgent and bleary, with “What Reason Could I Give,” an enigmatic ballad by Ornette Coleman. The two halves were working at cross purposes, but with a playful air.

Mr. Wilson, a jazz drummer constitutionally averse to pretension, has led his quartet since the mid-1990s, pushing an agenda of audacity, flexibility and friskiness. The band, with Jeff Lederer on saxophones, Kirk Knuffke on cornet and Chris Lightcap on bass, specializes in rugged, small-scale epiphanies, following up on the epic example of Mr. Coleman. This was the group’s first-ever performance with strings, and it felt brightly provisional, free of hang-ups about compatibility. It wasn’t stiff or overworked.
 

The set actually included two of Mr. Coleman’s themes: “What Reason Could I Give” melted into “Broken Shadows,” another piece from 1971. Both featured declarative guest vocals by Mary LaRose and a calmly burbling churn in the rhythm section. Mr. Wilson dedicated these songs to the saxophonist Dewey Redman, a former mentor and a participant in the original recordings; Mr. Redman, who died in 2006, also lurked in the DNA of “The Gathering Call,” a springy set opener with an abrupt, ascending melody.

This was all courting heady abstraction, but Mr. Wilson and his band mates have a way of pushing through brambles with exuberance. (That tendency hasn’t gone unnoticed: in a couple of weeks, they will appear on Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz for Young People series, in a pair of concerts gamely titled “What Is Free Jazz?”) Within the band’s expressive mode, its front line modeled a handy contrast. Mr. Lederer was woollier, more guttural, a compendium of wheezes, honks and squeals; Mr. Knuffke took a deliberate path, with elliptical phrases and a coolly understated tone.

Photo: Brian Harkin for The New York Times
The string quartet — Nicole Federici on viola, Alisa Horn on cello and Skye Steele and Felicia Wilson, Mr. Wilson’s wife, on violin — flickered around the margins, playing interludes or accents mostly arranged by Mr. Lederer. On “Some Assembly Required,” a klezmerlike romp, and “If I Were a Boy,” a Beyoncé cover, Mr. Steele doubled the main melodic line, sighing or plucking, while the others lent background accompaniment.

Behind everything was Mr. Wilson’s smartly skittering pulse, along with his rummaging sense of invention. At one point he stood up to lead his quartet in a mock-ceremonial prelude, ringing toy hand-bells; later he recited “Bubbles,” a Carl Sandburg poem, with a goofy sincerity. And before plunging into the final tune, a soulful shuffle repurposed for the hybrid ensemble, he joked that its title could apply to jazz and classical music. It was “Cats and Dogs Living Together,” a giddy highlight of the set.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/arts/music/21wilson.html?partner=rss&emc=rss