Thad Wilson Quintet
Takoma Station
Saturday, March 1, 2025

Thad Wilson has been a mainstay of the D.C. jazz scene since the 1990s. A leader of several ensembles, and one of the most consistent presences on jazz club stages across the city for the past 30 years, the trumpeter recently pulled together a new quintet to play at Takoma Station Tavern. It proved the perfect setting for the presentation of their sound – laid-back, yet serious in its approach – in what has become a unique time for music in this city.

Takoma Station hosts a weekly series, curated by Michael Phillips and Jazz Kitchen Productions, that has become a regular attraction for both jazz purists and those more keen on musical experimentation, with its bookings skewed toward all the various styles of bop. Every Saturday night, shows in the series squeeze in two sets between 7 and 10 p.m., making this time and place a model of consistency, and a reliable showcase for artists deeply engaged in the ethos of both traditional and contemporary jazz. 

In some ways, that’s also true of Wilson’s approach. Never one to be yoked to a particular brand or style, his turn at Takoma Station recreated the vibe of the great jazz jams. Though this can be typical of a Saturday night at Takoma, something about this specific group felt particularly quintessential of D.C.’s relationship to that tradition.

With Wilson playing the role of maestro, the set felt easy and chill. But just as you might lull into the groove, a flash or burst of improvisation could send you to the edge of your seat.

On bass was the veteran Ameen Saleem, the most senior member of Wilson’s supporting cast, often laying back in the cut. Saleem has always been one of the coolest dudes on the scene. And this night, we found him layering lines almost as if he was back playing with his old boss Roy Hargrove. Indeed, the opening to the first set felt like something straight out of the RH Factor.

On keys was Janelle Gill, another star in the line of the great D.C. pianists. Though her keyboard stayed locked into the Fender Rhodes setting for much of the night, it’s hard not to wonder how much deeper things might have gotten had there been a grand piano (Phillips does sometimes arrange for a piano rental, usually when a pianist is that week’s featured bandleader).

Completing the rhythm section was Kweku Sumbry. The powerful young drummer, who briefly led his own series at Takoma Station in 2023, had returned to D.C. just that afternoon from a gig with the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet in Seattle. Playing across the history of Black musics, Sumbry can seamlessly adapt to many different musical circumstances, and his playing on this night was no different.

Finally, joining Wilson up front was tenor saxophonist Elijah Easton, a longtime Wilson collaborator, who provided perhaps the highlight of the night during the second set. As he briefly left the stage to go mingle with friends in the crowd, Wilson invited Easton to call a tune of his choosing. The saxophonist’s choice was “Stablemates,” by Benny Golson, which found Easton full of furious fire together with Sumbry, whose posture during this exchange channeled a little bit of the great Elvin Jones. Wilson, it turns out, might have been setting us up the whole night.

The opening set began with a solid groove, punctuated by Wilson’s solos rearranging silences around large eruptions of tone. As if they were feeling out the crowd, the quintet was in no rush to say all it needed to at the outset. Turning to fellow trumpeter Maurice “MoBetta” Brown’s “Capricorn Rising,” the band stayed rooted in this position of composure.

As they were hitting a stride, entering what felt like a vibe that was going to set the agenda for the whole night, Wilson made a shift, calling “(I Love For You) For Sentimental Reasons” and featuring himself on vocals. Dedicated to anyone in the audience “who cares for another person in the room,” the trumpeter polished off a vocal moment that moved the tavern space toward the territory of cabaret lounge. The combination of his smooth tenor vocals and his flugelhorn allowed Wilson to prescribe mellow tones for the kind of collective malaise facing most residents of D.C.

Resisting the clichéd injunction to check politics at the door, Wilson was not shy about revealing exactly where he stood on the state of the nation, especially as it intersected with the arts. At one point, he gestured to the possible future of monster truck racing at the Kennedy Center. But he was not leaning into despair, or any of the other valid emotions that can feel so tempting: All of this was, in the end, just a refreshing moment of candor. In fact it was kind of playful.

Beginning the second set, Wilson called no tune in particular and, though I could swear I heard the chords of “Alabama” tucked in there neatly, the tune was not a tune, but an act of spontaneous composition that went on for almost 20 minutes. Not letting the moment go without memorializing it, Wilson hilariously invited the audience to give the nameless improvisation a title. Somehow, we landed on “Angela (Whatever).” I guess this was someone’s name, or maybe someone’s crush. Maybe it was like the many titles of compositions to jazz tunes that mean absolutely nothing, because we just be playin’.

Though the formation of this quintet was ad hoc, it would not be right to call this night one of experimentation. The easygoing, yet serious inflection given to the music was the result of what I believe is a physical space that has been marked, maybe even consecrated, to house the best sensibilities of this art form: technical mastery, plus playful improvisation. Thad Wilson’s quintet embodied that intention, fitting into the venue’s vibe as if slipping into a glove.

Comments

comments