For his fourth Palmetto CD, Matt Wilson sends his regular quartet on a brief vacation and recruits Terell Stafford on trumpet, Larry Goldings on piano (not organ), and Dennis Irwin on bass. Previous efforts with the Matt Wilson Quartet and with Dewey Redman have gained Wilson a left-of-center reputation, but on Arts and Crafts the drummer confounds expectations altogether. He begins with Rahsaan Roland Kirk's "Stompin' Grounds," a no-frills ride through "Stompin' at the Savoy" changes. Two tracks later, the band runs down Bud Powell's "Webb City," packing an enormous punch without exceeding four minutes.
Zapping: fights against cultural restraints, prejudices, genre divisions and rigid purist concepts. It inaugurates a compository and interpretative experience in rediscovering the satisfaction of extreme incursions and sudden movements, as homage to the genius of two gurus of contemporary music: Frank Zappa and Thelonious Monk.