Honey And Salt – Music Inspired By The Poetry Of Carl Sandburg (Palmetto Records)
Matt Wilson
Released August 25, 2017
DownBeat Five-Star Review
Jazz Journalists Association Awards Record of the Year 2018
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=jwSMNBXked4&list=OLAK5uy_mcOUprpMWO42ml3XWkjUZxaYizyhW0S4U
Spotify:
About:
Honey and Salt is loosely divided into three chapters and an epilogue: the first, urban-leaning poems; the second, more rural themes and ideas; the third examining the collision and overlap of the two; and the epilogue serving as a meditative leave-taking. Lee Morgan-esque horn lines over a gut-rumbling blues bassline open “Soup,” Sandburg’s more-timely-than-ever musing about a celebrity caught in the ordinary act of slurping soup from a spoon. Christian McBride’s gregarious baritone intones “Anywhere and Everywhere People,” with a series of horn motifs for the poem’s key repeated words. Wilson himself recites the contemplative “As Wave Follows Wave,” ultimately joined by a host of collaborators, friends and family members. “Night Stuff” unfolds against a slow, twilit landscape, while John Scofield recites “We Must Be Polite” in a hilarious deadpan against Wilson’s New Orleans shuffle. Sandburg’s own voice can be heard in duet with Wilson’s drums on his most revered poem, “Fog.” Chapter one closes with the raucous march of “Choose.”
Lederer reads “Prairie Barn” (which references a barn owned by a relative by marriage of Wilson’s) against Thomson’s American-tinged guitar and clattering wind chimes to open chapter two. “Offering and Rebuff” becomes a country love song, while “Stars, Songs, Faces” takes on an Ornette-inspired harmolodic tone. “Bringers” closes the chapter with a taste of down-home gospel. Chapter three opens with Black reading “Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz” in a cantankerous rasp while Lederer and Wilson duet a happy accident occasioned by a power outage at the studio. Bill Frisell’s soft-spoken voice on “Paper 1” contrasts with Joe Lovano’s hep-cat enthusiasm on its companion piece. The two are separated by Rufus Reid’s throaty purr on Wilson’s Beat-era throwback take on “Trafficker,” and the chapter ends with the lyrical “I Sang.”
Bley reads “To Know Silence Perfectly,” for which Wilson made silence the vehicle for improvisation; in an approach that John Cage would have appreciated, the tune’s theme is the same every time, while the length of silences vary based on the performers’ whims. Finally, “Daybreak” ends the album on a celebratory note.
As always, Wilson revels in a wide variety of moods and styles throughout Honey and Salt, which takes its name from a 1963 collection of Sandburg’s poetry. The title captures the delectable combination of sweetness and spice that characterizes the poet’s ? and Wilson’s ? work. “That’s my favorite volume of his poetry and I love the title,” Wilson says. “It has some collision, some rub. Music isn’t all flowers and candy; it has to have some edge to it.”
Track Listing:
CHAPTER ONE
1. Soup (Matt Wilson) 4:52
2. Anywhere and Everywhere People (Matt Wilson) 3:57
reader: Christian McBride
3. As Wave Follows Wave (Matt Wilson) 3:47
reader: Matt Wilson
4. Night Stuff (Matt Wilson) 6:28
5. We Must Be Polite (Matt Wilson) 3:47
reader: John Scofield
6. Fog (Matt Wilson) 2:54
reader: Carl Sandburg
7. Choose (Matt Wilson) 3:12
CHAPTER TWO
8. Prairie Barn (Matt Wilson) 2:15
reader: Jeff Lederer
9. Offering and Rebuff (Matt Wilson) 3:24
10. Stars, Songs, Faces (Matt Wilson) 2:58
11. Bringers (Matt Wilson) 4:24
CHAPTER THREE
12. Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz (Matt Wilson) 3:30
reader: Jack Black
13. Paper 2 (Matt Wilson) 5:24
reader: Bill Frisell
14. Trafficker (Matt Wilson) 1:50
reader: Rufus Reid
15. Paper 1 (Matt Wilson) 0:44
reader: Joe Lovano
16. I Sang (Matt Wilson) 4:07
EPILOGUE
17. To Know Silence Perfectly (Matt Wilson) 2:38
reader: Carla Bley
18. Daybreak (Matt Wilson) 3:49
Personnel:
Dawn Thomson: vocals, guitar
Ron Miles: cornet
Jeff Lederer: reeds, harmonium, voice
Martin Wind: acoustic bass, voice
Matt Wilson: drums, voice
Jack Black: voice
Christian McBride: voice
John Scofield: voice
Carla Bley: voice
Bill Frisell: voice
Joe Lovano: voice
Rufus Reid: voice
Recorded October 17-18, 2016, at Maggie’s Farm
Produced by Matt Wilson, Matt Balitsaris, Jeff Lederer
Engineering and Mixing: Matt Balitsaris
Review:
You knew Matt Wilson was headed somewhere when his first album dropped a snatch of stoic philosophy from Carl Sandburg and got Dewey Redman to play “Sweet Betsy From Pike” (which was part of The American Songbag anthology Sandburg published in 1927). The bandleader has inventive ideas about the way the arts can intermingle. Spoken word and song have flecked his largely instrumental work ever since, and he’s actively harked back to his Midwestern roots Wilson’s Honey and Salt group deals exclusively with Sandburg’s verse, and this new disc not only reminds us how whimsical a poet the master truly was, but also how gifted a drummer and arranger Wilson is. The program shifts and shifts, but each turn introduces a genuinely discrete approach to the verse at hand. Guest narrator Christian McBride intones the social strata thesis “Anywhere And Everywhere People” while cornetist Ron Miles and reedist Jeff Lederer fly expressively around him. Vocalist Dawn Thomson coos a campfire lament that manages to synopsize heartbreak with the line “love is a fool star” while bringing some twang to the party. The core ensemble (bassist Martin Wind rounds out the quintet) is versatile enough to cover this variety. As actor Jack Black (husband of Charlie Haden’s daughter Petra) echoes voice-over artist Ken Nordine on “Snatch Of Sliphorn Jazz,” Lederer and Wilson freebop their retorts. And when Wilson, who grew up a stone’s throw from Sandburg’s birthplace, eerily mallets his toms as a recording of Sandburg repeats the lines of “Fog,” the performance cuts to the essence of this irresistible record: The connections are deep.
Jim Macnie (Downbeat)
