Jazz Articles about Matt Wilson

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Pete Mills: Art and Architecture

by Jim Santella
September 11, 2004

Straight-ahead jazz combines pleasant memories with fresh energy when it's created by a unit such as Pete Mills' quintet. His lovely tenor saxophone tone soothes while it cascades around the room. The session remains peaceful and quiet throughout. Mills stretches out on up-tempo romps and lays back casually for lyrical ballads.

With the pared-down backing of just bass and drums, he delivers “In Walked Bud" with a bounce. Careful to keep the tempo in the moderate range, he ...

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Matt Wilson: Wake Up! (To What

by Jim Santella
September 10, 2004

Matt Wilson's reputation as a creative artist precedes him. His strong leadership has produced several fine ensembles with excellent performing credentials. He's served as the backbone for many stellar sessions.

With Terrell Stafford, Dennis Irwin and Larry Goldings, the drummer has assembled one of the finest straight-ahead quartets around. Each has his own unique voice, and each shines brightly on Wake Up!.

As Curtis Stigers joins them for “There Comes a Time," you feel the soulful ...

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Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts: Wake Up! (To What

by Mark Sabbatini
September 9, 2004

Open-minded and unselfish. Good moral qualities, but are they good musical ones as well?

In drummer Matt Wilson's case, the answer is mostly yes on his latest album Wake Up! (To What's Happening) , reuniting the Arts And Crafts quartet that released a relatively straight-ahead album by that name in '01. Wilson, an exceptional player whose albums often involve a fair amount of experimentation with varying degrees of success, puts out a generally very listenable disc here, although ...

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Pete Mills: Art and Architecture

by Dan McClenaghan
August 23, 2004

It's nice to hear a mainstream set hit the ground running like this. Saxophonist Pete Mills opens his Art and Architecture with the frictionless propulsion of “Dot Com," a tune that zips forward on the rhythm section momentum of a sleek monorail riding a cushion of magnetism, on a workout that lets you know that straight ahead jazz is alive and well, juiced up even, in the hands of a younger generation.This is only Mills' second CD as ...

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Ted Nash: Still Evolved

by Jim Santella
December 3, 2003

Ted Nash's work with Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Don Ellis, the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, the Herbie Nichols Project and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra has earned the saxophonist a reputation for living in the mainstream. At 43, he’s in a position to continue shaping the landscape of straight-ahead jazz through his innovative ideas.

The title of Still Evolved refers to the growth we’ve witnessed in the modern mainstream during the jazz resurgence of the ...

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Ted Nash: Still Evolved

by C. Michael Bailey
October 9, 2003

Still Evolved can be heard as an accidental suite, a collection of compositions that hang together independent of design. Ted Nash is most recently holding down a tenor chair in the Kennedy Center Jazz Orchestra. Here he turns his attention to small group performance and composition... with a hurricane-like creative force. Mr. Nash has composed eight pieces for the standard trumpet-tenor quintet. And the music is a fresh as strawberries bursting on the roof of your mouth.

Besides ...

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Ted Nash: Still Evolved

by Elliott Simon
October 7, 2003

Before he was 20, saxophonist Ted Nash had recorded his first record and had played with musicians as diverse as Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones and Don Cherry. Now, more than 20 years later, he is at home in both the up- and downtown worlds of NYC jazz as a part of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the Jazz Composer’s Collective. With such connections, Nash is able to assemble the decidedly adventurous rhythm section of bassist Ben Allison, drummer Matt ...