Last summer, the Dakota in downtown Minneapolis hosted pianist Denny Zeitlin with a trio featuring bassist Buster Williams and drummer Matt Wilson. While Williams was already well known to Twin Cities audiences, for many of us, it was our first opportunity to see and hear one of the most exciting drummers of a generation filled with rock solid, skin-busting trap artists. Now 40, Matt Wilson has been named by Down Beat critics as the top “rising star” drummer for two consecutive years; was named “Best New Artist” by the New York Jazz Critics Circle; was the 2004 winner of Modern Drummers reader’s poll; and was nominated as 2004 Jazz Drummer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. Similar accolades have been heaped upon his ensembles, the Matt Wilson Quartet and Arts and Crafts. Matt Wilson’s Arts and Crafts is now swinging through the Midwest, bringing its exciting perspective on mainstream jazz to clubs and halls throughout Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois, including stops at the Dakota (Minneapolis, March 1-2) and Green Mill (Chicago, March 4-5).

A midwesterner himself, Matt Wilson was born in Knoxville, IL, where his parents encouraged him to explore art and music. After seeing an episode of I Love Lucy with Buddy Rich as guest star, third grader Matt was inspired to take up the drums. He bought a pair of drum sticks and “began exploring a wide range of suitable cookware and five gallon buckets as sound sources.” After receiving a used set of snare and cymbals, Wilson joined his brother (on tenor sax) and found audiences with the local PTA and 4H Club. Notes Wilson, “It was quite a duo…We had a book that explored all of the hits of the 60’s and 70’s. We were serious Herb Alpert aficionados.” Wilson went on to play in school ensembles, learned to read music, and in 8^th grade was hired by his high school band director to play drums in his weekend dance band. He soon had other gigs--a big band (Common Denominator), country bands, Dixieland bands, “anything I could play.”

After high school, Wilson attended Wichita State University where he studied with Dr. J.C. Combs, “not only a fantastic percussionist but he possesses one of the most creatively fertile imaginations on the planet.” With Combs, Wilson found ways to use a number of atypical percussion sources, including pinball machines, cloggers, bowlers, and professional wrestlers. In Wichita, Wilson met his wife-to-be, a violinist, and the two moved to Boston where she studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. Boston offered a lot of opportunities for a budding musician, including playing with the Either/Orchestra, Charlie Kohlhase Quintet, and John Medeski. With encouragement from such jazz virtuosos as Cecil Mc Bee and Andrew Cyrille, the Wilsons relocated to New York, where Wilson notes that “I loved the energy of the scene immediately and began playing with some amazing musicians.”

Wilson has performed or recorded with a wide array of artists, including Dewey Redman, Ray Anderson, Bill Mays, Janis Siegal, Cecil McBee, Leni Stern, Fred Hersch, Michael Brecker, Dave Liebman, Ravi Coltrane, Mark Taylor, Sheila Jordan, Lee Konitz, Rufus Reid, Ted Rosenthal, Mario Pavone, Joanne Brackeen, Denny Zeitlin, and many others. He’s made dozens of recordings as sideman, and has played on numerous national jingles and soundtracks. The Matt Wilson Quartet was initiated in 1996; in 2002 he founded his current touring band, Arts and Crafts. As a popular instructor, Wilson has conducted workshops and clinics throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, and South America, covering drumset performance, rhythm section performance, music business, and creativity and expression for all instruments. He is also a member of New York's Jazz Composer's Collective.

Wilson’s recordings as leader on Palmetto Records include As Wave Follows Wave (1996), Going Once, Going Twice (1998), Smile (1999), Arts and Crafts (2001), Humidity (2003), and his most recent release, Wake Up! (2004). The new recording has been named one of the top jazz records of 2004 by the Village Voice, iTunes, Jazziz, ejazznews, All About jazz, the Providence Phoenix, and the Sacremento Bee.

Of his Arts and Crafts ensemble, Wilson notes that “I wanted to do something with a different instrumentation than the Matt Wilson Quartet. I also wanted to have the opportunity to records tunes I had stored in my ‘want to record someday’ file…to compose pieces that stretched the ‘classic’ jazz quartet instrumentation.” The first version of Arts and Crafts included trumpeter Terrell Stafford, bassist Dennis Irwin, and pianist/organist Larry Goldings. Noted Michael Renner (St. Louis Post Dispatch), the results were “innovative, original compositions, beautifully executed standards and arresting musicianship…Wilson, a polyglot on the drums, spoke the languages of bop, Latin, avant-garde and straight-ahead jazz rhythm with equal command. His ballad work erased any distinction between traditional and avant-garde or modern.”

For the 2005 Midwest tour, Matt Wilson’s Arts and Crafts ensemble will feature Ron Miles on trumpet along with bassist Irwin and keyboardist Goldings. Dennis Irwin has been a first-call bassist on the New York scene for the past 30 years. Originally a clarinetist, Irwin has played with Betty Carter, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Al Haig, Chet Baker, Mose Allison, Johnny Griffin, Joe Lovano, and John Scofield, among others. Ron Miles began playing the trumpet seriously in junior high school and studied music at the University of Denver and the Manhattan School of Music. He has played with Bill Frisell, Don Byron, the Ellington Orchestra, and Fred Hess' Boulder Creative Music Ensemble. Dan McClenaghan (All About Jazz) noted that “Ron Miles has a breathy, very lyrical approach to the trumpet; straightforward melodies that seem to cry out for words." Bostonian Larry Goldings began to play piano at age 9, later studying with Ran Blake and Keith Jarrett. He began his professional career while attending the New School for Social Research in New York City, working with the legendary Jon Hendricks and studying with Sir Roland Hanna, Jaki Byard, Fred Hersch, and guitarist Jim Hall, with whom he toured for three years. Goldings has explored funk (with Maceo Parker) and folk/rock (with James Taylor) as well as touring and recording with top jazz artists. Noted Chris Hoven (All About Jazz), “his stellar piano work helps make him a resourceful and precious sideman capable of crossing any variety of stylistic boundaries.”

Impressed with Matt Wilson’s work with Denny Zeitlin last summer, I noted that “With even more body language than most drummers, Wilson has a wide-ranging human and technical arsenal at his disposal, and he uses it all, from wood to metal sticks, from wire brushes and strings of wood “shells” to the air currents passing through his fluttering hands, literally all the 'bells and whistles' that can be whacked, thunked, jingled, even dropped on the floor. He seems to merely give a cymbal a certain look to coax just the right sound” (Jazz Police). To hear him in the role of bandleader and composer will be a real treat, and in the stellar company of Miles, Irwin, and Goldings, I can’t think of a better way to enjoy Arts and Crafts.

Matt Wilson’s Arts and Crafts tour through the Midwest includes stops at: Truman State University in Kirksville, MO (February 25-26); St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN (February 27); at the Dakota in Minneapolis (March 1-2, www.dakotacooks.com); at Sun Prairie (WI) high school near Madison (March 3); at the Green Mill in Chicago (March 4-5; 773- 878-5552), and an afternoon solo concert at the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago (March 5; 312-222-1467). See www.mattwilsonjazz.com for more information about Arts and Crafts.