Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts: The Scenic Route

CML call number: CD JAZZ Wilson
Bill Carbone wrote in the New Haven Advocate: "'The new record is a joy,' Wilson commented in a recent phone interview. '[Arts and Crafts] has been playing together so much it’s a real band.' … A joy indeed. … The album’s opener and title track, which sounds like Ornette Coleman and Jack McDuff jamming at a ’50s beach party, features the Hammond B3 organ of Arts and Crafts’ newest member Gary Versace plus Wilson’s Sidewinder-inspired funky bossa drumming. This twist has a twist: the dance alternates between measures of 10 and 12 beats before breaking down altogether into free improvisation. Arts and Crafts also look to the left while on The Scenic Route. Both Ornette Coleman’s mach-speed 'Rejoicing' and Wilson’s own 'In Touch With Dewey' feature the melodic collective improvisation of the Coleman free-bop school and Wilson’s characteristically refined drum solos. And, as an elegantly poignant closing statement, Albert Ayler’s 'Our Prayer' and Lennon and McCartney’s 'Give Peace A Chance' are set together above a bed of Versace’s accordion and Wilson’s brush circles" (4/26/07).