Dennis Irwin on the bass

Video: Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts performing Pat Metheney's "The Bat."

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Bassist Dennis Irwin passed on March 10th, just a few hours before a benefit concert held at Jazz at Lincoln Center to raise money for his battle with cancer. His brother Dave recounts the concert on his blog. It sounds like an amazing show: Jon Hendricks, Mose Allison, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell, Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett, and John Scofield among many others. You have to hope that the bassist's departure secured him a front row seat.

Darcy James Argue has collected a fine list of Irwin tributes and memorials on his blog and they are all worth reading.

I saw Irwin play with Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts at the Blue Room in Kansas City last year. In addition to generously anchoring the ensemble with his work on bass, he also broke out a clarinet for a couple of numbers. In my post about the show, I described it as feeling like a house party. This intimacy is one of the many advantages that small clubs have over festivals and larger venues. Proximity to the musicians is particularly helpful with a music that has never been primarily about volume.

I went to the show mostly on the strength of the buzz around Wilson and because I'd been intrigued and wowed several recordings featuring the ensemble's keyboard wiz Gary Versace. They were both outstanding, as was trumpeter Terrell Stafford. Sitting there a piano's length from the bandstand I could see how intently all three of them listened when Irwin soloed. Several times all three of them would nod in unison at things that I couldn't hear.

So one of the lessons I took away from hearing Dennis Irwin play how much I still don't know. That's almost always a good thing, in life or art.

Show: Matt Wilson's Arts and Crafts

Friday, April 20, 2007 @ The Blue Room

Despite the cover charge and bar tab, it felt more like a house party.

Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts played three solid sets of top-shelf jazz last Friday at the Blue Room. In the two long breaks in between, the band milled among the tables glad-handing the well-wishers. Arts & Crafts trumpeter Terrell Stafford chatted with local pianist and singer Pamela Baskin-Watson. Local bassist Gerald Spaits worked the room. The Folly's Doug Tatum hung out in a corner with Columbia promoter Jon Poses plotting next year's jazz series at the Folly. A group of hepsters from the UMKC Jazz program (I'm just guessing, they could also be from Jim Mair's jazz program at KCK Community College) called out requests that were honored. Organ-meister Ken Lovern floated in and back out.

In the midst of it all, beer in hand was our host, Matt Wilson. Wilson is a tall job. He looks like the human you'd get if you combined Al Franken and Tim Robbins. He laughs easily on stage and off the high spirits seem to be contagious. Keyboard wizard Gary Versace got out his accordion. Bassist Dennis Irwin told a joke and later brought out his clarinet for a couple numbers.

There's good reason for Wilson to feel comfortable around here. Though he lives in New York now, Wilson grew up in Central Illinois and went to college in Wichita where he studied with Dr. J.C. Combs. I overheard him say he's got family in Springfield and Neosho.

The Arts & Crafts approach, according to Wilson, is using whatever is at hand to express yourself. For Wilson this applies applies as much to repertoire as to instrumentation. The band covered everything from Thelonius Monk to Bossa Nova to Jackie Byard to eclectic originals like "Free Range Chicken." "Chicken" is, by the way, the first time I've heard bubble wrap employed in a jazz setting, but then I don't get out much. The everything-AND-the-kitchen-sink approach covers over a multitude of distractions: when the credit card terminal at the bar went off during "Chicken" it sounded like it was right on cue.

Wilson employed both matched and trad grips, used both ends of his drumsticks, the window sill and what looked like a shoelace full of metal bits on the cymbal. Stafford used a series of mutes including a red plumber's helper to broaden the palette of his trumpet. You might expect a horn player to be the odd man out in this kind of setting, but the arrangements and Stafford's rhythmic attack kept him very much in the mix.

For me the standout of the evening was keyboard player Gary Versace. He traded between the piano the Hammond B3 throughout the night, counting the steps at Wilson's request ("...9, 10, 11 and done!"). Versace is the newest member of the group, taking over for founding pianist/organist Larry Goldings. His work at the organ in particular added an almost mystical sheen to the often antic proceedings.

Wilson has stated often that improvisational jazz is about finding the moment. An apt illustration of this came in the third set. Versace had moved from the piano to the organ as Stafford introduced the original tune "Lester," a tribute to Lester Bowie. He sat staring at his charts (he is the new guy after all) then he whispered to Wilson, "I think accordion!" Wilson half nodded and half shrugged. Versace moved over to get his squeezebox and away he went. A moment later Wilson was grinning like a loon. It was definitely the right call.

More info
The Arts & Crafts Myspace page

Set Lists
We See (Monk)
The Scenic Route*
The Bat (Pat Metheny)
Rejoicing (Ornette Coleman)
Love Walked In

Clarinet/Accordion duet
Cuban Carnival Song
Tenderly
Free Range Chicken*
Beija Flor
We'll Be Together Again (Frankie Lane)

Confirmation (Charlie Parker)
Lester (for Lester Bowie)*
Aluminum Baby (Jakie Byard)
In Touch With Dewey*

*Wilson original

KC Alert: Matt Wilson

[Note: Video updated 01 Feb 08]

Hotshit drummer Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts ensemble is coming to the Blue Room on Friday (April 20) and the show is definitely worth checking out. Wilson is touring in support of a new album Arts and Crafts, just out on Palmetto.

To get a taste of what to expect, check out the eccentrically framed video of "The Scenic Route," captured in February at the Elmhurst Jazz Festival in Elmhurst, Illinoize. The Arts and Crafts group features of M@ (that's his new symbol) on skins, Terell Stafford on trumpet; Dennis Irwin, on the doghouse and Gary Versace, being heroic on the Hammond B3.

Versace should be as much fun to see as Wilson. They both did amazing work on Dan Balmer's recent Thanksgiving album. And Versace also lent his magic fingers to The Places You'll Go
(Songlines), a fine album by featuring guitarist Brad Shepik. He's taking the Hammond, that workhouse of the blues, to fascinating new places. Definitely not Butter For Yo Popcorn.

Terell Stafford, by the way, has a new album out: Taking Chances - Live at the Dakota (released March 13 on MaxJazz).