Humidity

Humidity Artist: Matt Wilson
Label: Palmetto Records
Category: Music



Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1


UPC: 753957208929
EAN: 0753957208929
ASIN: B00008J2S8


Release Date: 2003-02-25

Related Categories:

Avant Garde & Free Jazz Avant Garde & Free Jazz
Related | Jazz | Styles | Music
Bebop General Bebop General
Related | Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music
General General
Related | Jazz | Styles | Music
Modern Postbebop Modern Postbebop
Related | Jazz | Styles | Music
General General
Related | Pop | Styles | Music

Listmania:

  1. Anti-Smooth Jazz: Yikes! More Saxophonists! Part III

Tracks:

  1. Thank You Billy Higgins!
  2. Swimming In The Trees
  3. Cooperation
  4. Free Willy
  5. Wall Shadows
  6. Raga
  7. Code Yellow
  8. Humidity
  9. Don't Blame Me
  10. Our Delight
  11. All My Children
  12. Beginning Of A Memory

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Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars YES!.......2006-07-30

Wild, joyful, and free, this quartet, which is augmented at times by three other musicians, plays avant-garde jazz that grooves. "Swimming in the Trees" is reminiscent of Sun Ra's early albums Sun Song and Sound of Joy from 1957, and the subdued sounds on "Cooperation" and "Wall Shadows" are reminiscent of Dave Holland's album Conference of the Birds from 1972. "Humidity" takes the cake with a clichéd 1980s beat that morphs into funk before the music explodes. Unfortunately, the band slips into Oriental tokenism on "Raga" and the syrupy sweet on "Beginning of a Memory." Overall, though, this is the kind of music that makes me exclaim "YES!"

4 out of 5 stars Telepathic interplay from Wilson's finest group........2004-08-18

To call the music of drummer Matt Wilson's quartet "free-jazz" would be careless. While there are spirited moments of impassioned playing by the soloists, categorizing the group's excursions as unstructured free-jazz would be a misnomer. The quartet's tunes are often chart-driven with tricky horn accompaniment and non-traditional solo orders that defy staid jazz traditions.

Wilson's latest outing begins with the appropriately titled "Thank You Billy Higgins". The tune is irresistibly bouncy free-bop in the vein of Ornette Coleman's classic early '60s Atlantic sides. This is, of course, no coincidence, since Billy Higgins was Coleman's main drummer at that time.

Coleman's spirit presides over a majority of the tunes on Humidity, but not in a debilitating way. Wilson has a crisp, clean post-bop drumming style that recalls Higgins, albeit with a modern sensibility that includes everything from world music flourishes to straight up rock and funk. While his writing style owes a good bit to Coleman's influence, there are plenty of pieces that are uniquely his own.

Take for example "Free Willy," one of the albums' standout tracks. The tune touts a heady mix of rhythm changes taken at a breakneck tempo, switching seamlessly from a sprightly bop theme -- complete with dueling saxophones -- to a quiet middle section featuring a slow-burn bass solo. The number progresses through a series of trading fours between the drummer and saxophonists and makes a return to the head melody. It's the sort of tune that would make Charles Mingus proud.

In addition to the up-tempo material, there are some quieter tunes of a more chamberesque nature. There are guest spots by a pair of brass players and even Wilson's wife on violin on three tracks. The variety of these pieces helps to flesh the album out and keep the sound of the quartet fresh. "Raga", complete with modally driven horn lines soaring over hand percussion and bowed bass sounds exactly like you would imagine it sounds.

Halfway through the album, the title track breaks open with a drum machine riff that quickly gets overshadowed by the ensemble's gradual entrance, until funk drumming kicks in. Wilson's previous albums have dabbled in this sort of territory before with less successful results, usually bordering on trivial stabs at rock or lame funk. But here he seems to have nailed it. It works in all the right ways.

This quartet has been together as a touring ensemble for over five years now, and their musical empathy shows real signs of growth. Humidity finds Matt Wilson and his cohorts at their finest. In an age where jazz musicians often lack the financial ability to maintain a steady touring unit, this quartet sets a fine example of the sort of telepathic interplay that can be achieved by endless nights of playing side by side on the road. Studio jam sessions come and go, but groups like this are a rarer beast indeed.

(This review was originally written for the online webzine: junkmedia.org, and was published there March 25th 2003)

4 out of 5 stars Junkmedia... Review - Telepathic interplay.......2003-03-25

To call the music of drummer Matt Wilson's quartet "free-jazz" would be careless. While there are spirited moments of impassioned playing by the soloists, categorizing the group's excursions as unstructured free-jazz would be a misnomer. The quartet's tunes are often chart-driven with tricky horn accompaniment and non-traditional solo orders that defy staid jazz traditions.

Wilson's latest outing begins with the appropriately titled "Thank You Billy Higgins". The tune is irresistibly bouncy free-bop in the vein of Ornette Coleman's classic early '60s Atlantic sides. This is, of course, no coincidence, since Billy Higgins was Coleman's main drummer at that time.

Coleman's spirit presides over a majority of the tunes on Humidity, but not in a debilitating way. Wilson has a crisp, clean post-bop drumming style that recalls Higgins, albeit with a modern sensibility that includes everything from world music flourishes to straight up rock and funk. While his writing style owes a good bit to Coleman's influence, there are plenty of pieces that are uniquely his own.

Take for example "Free Willy," one of the albums' standout tracks. The tune touts a heady mix of rhythm changes taken at a breakneck tempo, switching seamlessly from a sprightly bop theme -- complete with dueling saxophones -- to a quiet middle section featuring a slow-burn bass solo. The number progresses through a series of trading fours between the drummer and saxophonists and makes a return to the head melody. It's the sort of tune that would make Charles Mingus proud.

In addition to the up-tempo material, there are some quieter tunes of a more chamberesque nature. There are guest spots by a pair of brass players and even Wilson's wife on violin on three tracks. The variety of these pieces helps to flesh the album out and keep the sound of the quartet fresh. "Raga", complete with modally driven horn lines soaring over hand percussion and bowed bass sounds exactly like you would imagine it sounds.

Halfway through the album, the title track breaks open with a drum machine riff that quickly gets overshadowed by the ensemble's gradual entrance, until funk drumming kicks in. Wilson's previous albums have dabbled in this sort of territory before with less successful results, usually bordering on trivial stabs at rock or lame funk. But here he seems to have nailed it. It works in all the right ways.


This quartet has been together as a touring ensemble for over five years now, and their musical empathy shows real signs of growth. Humidity finds Matt Wilson and his cohorts at their finest. In an age where jazz musicians often lack the financial ability to maintain a steady touring unit, this quartet sets a fine example of the sort of telepathic interplay that can be achieved by endless nights of playing side by side on the road. Studio jam sessions come and go, but groups like this are a rarer beast indeed.

Troy Collins
...

4 out of 5 stars It's not the heat- this is very COOL humidity.......2003-03-21

Matt Wilson dismisses the piano and instead joins the efforts of Andrew D'Angelo on alto and bass clarinet; Jeff Lederer on tenor & soprano saxes and clarinet; and Yosuke Inoue on acoustic and electric bass along with Matt in the percussion kitchen. There are twelve songs here that roam the world from a fun Middle-Eastern "raga" to a cool tribute to percussionist Billy Higgins.

The jazz compositions, most of which are Wilson's, employ small modules of sound like mosaic tiles, and combine these to form the jazz compositions. But, here's my only criticism; when using minimal information such as small repeating units, a composition sometimes does not reach its full meaning until these are repeated with small variations for a certain amount of time. I felt a few of these (Swimming in the Trees) were too short and I wanted more.

But wanting more is not all bad. I enjoyed this album despite the fact that I thought some of these songs would have benefitted from a longer development.

Music CD:

  1. Soliloquy ~ McCoy Tyner
  2. An Evening with the John Harmon Trio ~ John Harmon Trio
  3. The 1954 Paris Sessions ~ Frank Foster Quartet, Roy Haynes Sextet, Rene Thomas Quintet
  4. Tenorshoes ~ Scott Hamilton
  5. The Cincinnati Seven Jazz Septet ~ The Cincinnati Seven Jazz Septet
  6. Rhodes Ahead, Vol. 1 ~ Marc Cary
  7. The Jimmy Giuffre Clarinet ~ Jimmy Giuffre
  8. Blue Paradise ~ Mike Gallaher
  9. Banned in Boston ~ Illinois Jacquet
  10. Bohemia After Dark ~ Kenny Clarke

Music CD

Music CD

Music CD

Bobby Jimmy, You a Fool (The Best of Bobby Jimmy & the Critters) ~ Bobby Jimmy & the Critter

Babylon ~ Skindred

The Turnpike Diaries ~ The Getaway People

Idyllatry ~ Peter Principle

Appalachian Death Ride ~ Appalachian Death Ride

Leaders of the Free World ~ Elbow

Blink-182 ~ blink-182

Detroit Deli (A Taste of Detroit) ~ Slum Village

The Soundtrack To Life ~ The Outfit

Tha Takeover ~ Twistit