The Composer Doesn’t Fall Very Far From Inspiration

Like father, like son? In the case of composer-bandleader-guitarist Anthony Wilson the answer is yes . . . and no.

Wilson, the 29-year-old son of veteran orchestra leader Gerald Wilson, releases his debut album Tuesday. The eponymously titled collection of originals played by a nine-piece ensemble is solidly in the tradition of Oliver Nelson, Gil Evans, Tadd Dameron and--yes--Gerald Wilson.

“When I was a kid, I saw my father perform a million times,” the younger Wilson said. “I knew his music so well I could sing along with the solos. Just sitting in the car with him I’d become indoctrinated with his thoughts. He’d tune in the jazz station on the way home from school and could immediately identify who was playing and then immediately give his opinion on it. I can just about guess what he’ll tell you about almost anything you hear.”

Like many fathers and sons, the Wilsons, according to Anthony, have a few disagreements, and there are decided differences in their styles. “He values harmonic development above everything,” Anthony said of his father. “I think melodic development is the most important thing. We talk about it. He says if you’re only writing in four-part harmony, the music has no depth. I tell him that in Bach’s time there wasn’t much harmonic sophistication, but Bach’s music has depth because of the great melodies.”

And it doesn’t stop there. “When we talk about [composer-bandleader] Gil Evans, I can see his skin crawl. I’m such a Gil freak, every time you listen to his music you get something you missed in the melody. But when I say that to dad, he gets really quiet.”

While father and son may disagree here and there, there’s no doubt after hearing the new album that Anthony shares the traditional jazz values of the senior Wilson.

“[Anthony is] writing some great music and making me very proud,” said Gerald Wilson about his son. “It’s true that I’m definitely into deep harmony more than he is, but that’s just the way different people write. Just because I don’t see it that way doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”

Anthony began guitar lessons at 7, though his father at one point tried to steer him toward his instrument, the trumpet. “It just didn’t do it for me,” Anthony said. “And I wasn’t into jazz at the time. I was into Bob Dylan.”

Jazz came later, in junior high school and his “first flirtations” with Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy and Sonny Rollins. When he was 13, his father enrolled him in the Dick Grove School of Music to study harmony and improvisation. A year later, he was the youngest student studying composition at the prestigious Tanglewood Center in Tanglewood, Mass., summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

All this training began to pay off in 1995 when Wilson’s composition “Karaoke” (heard on the new album) won the 1995 BMI/Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz composers competition. A 1996 appearance at Catalina Bar & Grill with his nine-piece ensemble led to the record date with MAMA, the label that also records his father.

The group heard on the CD includes veteran saxophonists Pete Christlieb, Jack Nimitz and Louis Taylor as well as Wilson peers Brad Mehldau on piano, Danton Boller on bass and drummer Willie Jones. Saxophonist Bennie Wallace, with whom Wilson appears tonight and Saturday at the M Bar & Grill in Long Beach, makes a guest appearance on one cut. Wilson’s nine-piece ensemble will appear July 22 at Moonlight in Sherman Oaks.

“This album,” Anthony said, “is a record of experimentation, of me finding a sound. I love this instrumentation. It preserves the sound of a small band, but it can sound big when I want it to. Now I’m ready to go further out, to do more exploring.”

* Anthony Wilson appears with the Bennie Wallace Quartet tonight and Saturday at the M Bar & Grill, 213 Pine Ave., Long Beach; 9 and 11 p.m. $8. (310) 435-2525. The Anthony Wilson Ensemble appears at the Moonlight Supper Club, 13730 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, July 22, 8 and 10 p.m. First show $13, second show $9. (818) 788-2000.

Endowment Awards: Bassist Ron Carter and saxophonists James Moody and Wayne Shorter have been named the 1998 American Jazz Masters by the National Endowment for the Arts. The fellowships, announced Wednesday by endowment chair Jane Alexander, include one-time awards of $20,000.

Carter and Shorter, both members of Miles Davis’ landmark quintet of the ‘60s, have gone on to gain considerable respect as composers and bandleaders. Alto saxophonist Moody had a long association with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and is best known for his improvisation on “Moody’s Mood for Love,” a variation of the standard “I’m in the Mood for Love.”

The three awardees will be honored at an endowment-sponsored concert in New York City scheduled for Jan. 9, as part of the annual International Assn. of Jazz Educators Conference. Past winners of the American Jazz Masters award, given each year since 1982 to three or more musicians, have included Gillespie, Davis, Sonny Rollins, Ella Fitzgerald and, last year, drummer Billy Higgins.

Passings: A memorial service is scheduled Saturday for trombonist Thurman Green at the Church of the Hills, Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, 11 a.m. Green appeared with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Gerald Wilson, Willie Bobo, Teddy Edwards, the trombone ensemble Bone-Soir and many others. He died June 19 at the age of 56 in Los Angeles. Those wishing to contribute to the Thurman Green Memorial Fund should make checks payable to Gloria Green and send to KLON-FM, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, 90815. Please note “Thurman Green Memorial” on the envelope.

In the Racks: Saxophonist Dale Fielder’s “Ocean of Love and Mercy: A Passion Suite” (Cadence Jazz Records) documents Fielder’s December 1996 performance, at the Glendale First Lutheran Church, of his 11-part jazz opus for nine-piece ensemble. Fielder, who will lead his quartet at the Kristianstad Jazz Festival in Sweden July 10, will tune up his combo at 5th St. Dick’s, July 4-5. (213) 296-3970. . . . Tenor player David Sills shows why he’s considered one of the finest emerging saxophonists around town on his Resurgent Music release “Hangin’ Five,” with guest alto man Gary Foster. Sills appears in a duo downtown at San Antonio Winery today at noon, (213) 221-5957, and with a quartet tonight, 6 p.m. at Tesoro Trattoria (with guitarist Larry Koonse and bassist Putter Smith), (213) 680-0000. . . . Bassist Pat Senatore, who ran the Malibu jazz hang Pasquale’s for six years beginning in 1978, shows off his composing chops on “Pasquale” (Moo Records), which features bassoonist Paul Hanson, pianist Billy Childs and drummer Billy Higgins. . . . Pianist Don Preston, longtime Mothers of Invention keyboardist, cooks up quirky, often impassioned solo sounds on his collection of originals “Hear Me Out” (Echograph). Preston teams with different musicians every Tuesday at Lumpy Gravy, (213) 934-9400.

Free Music: Former Weather Report drummer Peter Erskine leads a trio tonight in the courtyard of the UCLA at Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center in Westwood, 6:30 p.m., (310) 824-6365. . . . Pianist Jane Getz leads a quartet with saxophonist Bennie Maupin tonight at LACMA, 5:30 p.m., (213) 857-6000. . . . Horace Tapscott’s Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra plays the Veterans Wadsworth Theater, Saturday, 8 p.m., (310) 794-8961. . . . Vibraphonist Fred Ramirez’s eight-piece Latin band appears at the French Park Art and Jazz Festival, Santa Ana, Sunday, 4 p.m.