Palmetto Records
1999
Smile
About This Album
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.
Track List (try tracks 2,4,5,6,7,9,10 and 11)

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