Matt Wilson is in “Good Trouble”

GOOD TROUBLE / Fireplace. CommUnity Spirit (Matt Wilson). Albert’s Alley (Jeff Lederer). Be That As it May (Akihito Gorai). Good Trouble Suite: RBG; Walk With the Wind; Good Trouble (Wilson-Lederer). Feet Music (Ornette Coleman). Sunshine On My Shoulders (John Denver). Libra (Gary Bartz) / Tia Fuller, a-sax; Jeff Lederer, t-sax/cl; Dawn Clement, pno/voc; Ben Allison, bs; Matt Wilson, dm/glock / Palmetto Records PM2012

I’ve long admired drummer Matt Wilson and the quality of the music on his CDs, thus I was eager to review this new release. Featured on it are two more female jazz musicians I was not aware of previously, alto saxist Tia Fuller and pianist Dawn Clement, so that was another reason for my being curious about it.

The album’s title is based on a comment made by the late Civil Rights leader John Lewis in Selma, Alabama back in the 1960s, to “Speak up, speak out, get in the way. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” Sadly, despite the huge gains that African-Americans have made since then, there are still problems to be overcome, particularly the tendency of certain police officers to overreact to any perceived threat of violence from black Americans.

As usual with Wilson’s groups, he manages to find or create pieces that swing, have immediate appeal via their themes, yet are interesting and quirky, and one can find no better example of this than the opener, Fireplace, with its strong Monk vibe. Both saxists, Jeff Lederer and Fuller, channel their inner Charlie Rouse to a point but also play strong lines of their own, sometimes including “outside” jazz phrases and licks. They alternate turns as well as play together, but any way you listen to them, they are extremely interesting.

Lederer’s original Albert’s Alley, pays tribute not to free jazz saxist Albert Ayler but to his dog! Well, Albert must be a pretty hip doggie, because this piece is a real swinger at the kind of tempo that has all but disappeared from jazz, a medium swing pace. Wilson is quoted in the publicity sheet as praising this band for its “energy and audacity”:

When we got together in the studio it felt so joyful and loose, yet focused. It proved to be a great combination of people that can deal with music in the moment and be flexible, but also be attentive to the details.

In addition to this, I’d also like to add about Wilson what I said about German jazz drummer Michael Griener: he plays music. He’s not interested in showing off his chops or messing around so much with the rhythm that it sounds like he’s playing an entirely different piece, yet he clearly makes his presence felt when it counts. In short, he is a superb, tasteful musician. Pianist Clement sings a vocal on Be That As It May, but I think the first part of the song must be in Japanese because I couldn’t make out a word she sang until the middle eight. She has a good sense of rhythm but not much voice, sounding like a hip 10-year-old. I didn’t much like the song anyway, so halfway through I just skipped the rest of it.

Next up is the album’s centerpiece, the Good Trouble Suite written jointly by Lederer and Wilson. The opener, RBG, is one of those funky type of pieces that were so much the rage on Blue Note albums of the late 1950s-early ‘60s, not a particularly strong or recognizable theme but lots of swing, and the solos are outstanding, particularly Clement’s on piano. Towards the end we understand what the initials stand for: Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the late Supreme Court justice.

Walk With the Wind is a slow, moody piece but clearly not a ballad (thank goodness). Again, it harks back to the soul jazz of the early ‘60s—perhaps that was its intent—but I really liked the long-lined melody played by the two saxists, and Wilson plays a sparse yet highly effective drum solo in the middle, followed by the two saxists playing without rhythm accompaniment. One might almost hear this as a sort of modern jazz spiritual. When the rhythm section returns behind the saxists, they create an unusual metric feel. The last piece in the suite, Good Trouble, has a wonderfully brief but lilting theme and a kind of Gospel beat to which Fuller responds with some excellent playing, sounding like a cross between Johnny Hodges and Sonny Stitt. And wow, does she take off in her solo! You GO, girl!!! (The band really gets into it behind her; you can hear a few shouts of enthusiasm from the other musicians as they kick it into gear.) For me, this track and Fireplace were the highlights of the album.

I found it interesting that they followed this suite with a piece by Ornette, Feet Music, but this, too has that kind of funky feel that permeated so much of Coleman’s piece in the 1970s and ‘80s (his Prime Time band period). Allison also plays an extended solo on this one, but it’s the final double-time playing of the two saxes with piano that really grab you. I’m not sure why they included a John Denver song in this set, but they give Sunshine on My Shoulders a funky sound as well. This one also includes a Clement “vocal.”

Gary Bartz’ Libra is a tune with a very strange meter in the first chorus, followed by straight 4 in the second, etc. The band really flies here, especially Fuller on alto who sounds entirely different from her previous solos: a harder, slightly rougher tone and really hard drive; Lederer comes close to matching her in intensity and invention. This track was also very, very impressive.

Wilson’s CommUnity Spirit, which also sounds like a slow Gospel song, closes out the program. About a minute and a half into it, however, it moves into an irregular meter which sounded to me like 9/4, to which they give a sort of quasi-Caribbean feel to. It is on this track that Lederer suddenly switches to the clarinet for his solo, but this time Fuller is clearly the better improviser, turning out an exquisitely-crafted solo that has the feel of a real composition about it. Every phrase she plays leads logically into the next, and the next. Even when Lederer’s clarinet comes squealing in behind her, it sounded more like a distraction from what Full was playing than something that added to it.

This is a pretty good album, primarily of interest because of the excellent tune construction and the playing of the two saxists and Wilson. Had they left the two vocal tracks off, the entire album would have had a much stronger feel.

—© 2024 Lynn René Bayley

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