Drummer and composer Matt Wilson gets creative as he delivers a tribute in both music and prose to poet Carl Sandburg.The team of Dawn Thomson/g, Ron Miles/ct, Jeff Lederer/reeds-harm and Martin Wind/b team up with Wilson in both instrument and voice to deliver readings of Sandburg’s work in a variety of sonic settings.
There’s a mix of hip bop blues as on “Soup” as well as cabaret spirits on “I Sang” while folksy strums are felt on “Offering and Rebuf” and a shuffle boogie digs well on “Choose.” Most intriguing are the guest readings, as Bill Frisell is stark on “Paper 2” Joe Lovano is deep during “Paper 1,” John Scofield is reverent on “We Must Be Polite” and Carla Bley gets soft and silky during “To Know Silence Perfectly.” Sandburg himself comes back from the dead as he is recorded with Wilson on a clever “Fog.” Wilson seems to never run out of ideas, and this one is up there in the top echelon in creativity.