Wilson Plays With Big Boys

Fame, a relative commodity in the jazz world, comes in different forms. Whatever fame 31-year-old guitarist Anthony Wilson has achieved so far has come from his composing and band-leading abilities.

Wilson, son of West Coast big-band leader Gerald Wilson, won the Thelonious Monk International Composing Competition in 1995, and in 1998 he was awarded a Gil Evans Fellowship in composing by the International Assn. of Jazz Educators. Also in 1998, his nonet recording “Goat Hill Blues” was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance.

Not as well-known--at least, not yet--is Wilson’s ability on his instrument of choice. Still, anyone who has seen him play with his celebrated nonet, where he shares solos with eight others, knows Wilson deserves some fame, however relative, for how well he plays guitar.

In the last year or so, Wilson has been fronting a trio with organist Joe Bagg, a format that puts more weight on his guitar and enables him to take longer, more frequent solos than when playing with the nine-piece band.

Saturday at Steamers Cafe in Fullerton, Wilson put on a spectacular display, showing strong ties to the tradition of Wes Montgomery and Grant Green, while bringing a fresh, modern sense of harmonics as well as healthy doses of his personality to everything he played.

With drummer Mark Ferber supplying the often changing rhythms and Bagg providing bass from his Hammond B3’s foot pedals, Wilson created dense, involved improvisations that contained as much plot and suspense as a John Grisham novel. This narrative flow was constructed of unusual series of chords and often blistering, single-note runs that moved logically from one to another.

Occasionally on the fastest tempos, Wilson could be seen to shake his left hand during pauses between lines as if to loosen it for even speedier phrasing. At the close of his rhythmically challenging version of “All the Things Your Are,” he ran off the scale with highly pitched tones whose crisp clinks resembled the sound of a pencil struck against a shot glass.

The organ trio, a format that faded in the 1960s with the advent of fusion jazz and advances in electric keyboard technology, enjoyed a revival in the last decade, evidenced by guitarist John Abercrombie’s work with organist Dan Wall and guitarist John Scofield’s inclusion of keyboardist John Medeski, the late Don Grolnick and others on his recordings.

Wilson took full advantage of the trio setup, blending his sound with Bagg’s grind and whine on theme statements. Bagg minimized the electric characteristics of his instrument as well as its swirling vibrato, choosing instead to blend neatly with Wilson’s creamy chords.

Drummer Ferber showed a tasteful reserve during most of the proceedings, sometimes tapping straight to the beat or adding abrupt, quirky shimmers from a series of small gongs.

The threesome took the straight-ahead route on tunes by guitarist Django Reinhardt and pianist Randy Weston, coming closest to the organ trio sound of the ‘50s on Weston’s “Berkshire Blues.” But Wilson didn’t entirely put aside his mantle as composer, opening the first set with his zippy “Esteem Cleaning” while showing a tremendous sensitivity on a yet-to-be-titled ballad.

Though Wilson certainly deserves the acclaim he’s received as a composer and ensemble leader, it may just be, if Saturday’s performance gives any indication, that as his career progresses he’ll receive equal notice for his abilities on guitar.

Fame, however relative, will not be fleeting.