Listening to some Tony Wilson albums
9 of his records that have kept me company over the past week-and-a-half
By my count, the final studio album led or co-led by the late Tony Wilson is Plays Long (2023) by Longhand, with the two violins of Jesse Zubot and Josh Zubot, bassist Russell Sholberg, and drummer Skye Brooks. I know nothing of saxophonist Peder Long except through this group, the record's tunes which Long wrote, and the liner notes and bios detailing Long's mentorship of Wilson. Plays Long feels like one long rock composition, except for the clean-toned intermission of "Soul Eternal". It feels like what I heard Wilson play with John Korsrud in early 2025.
The group I know best is Waxwing, with Jon Bentley on reeds and Peggy Lee on cello. On Escondido Dreams (2008), the group appeared as Wilson/Lee/Bentley and featured both saxophones and clarinets, not to mention the found radio moment on "Fornette". The mandolin-like sound on "Mor Feen" is apparently a charango that Wilson plays.
Our community has many musical tributes to colleagues recently passed. Waxwing did it on A Bowl of Sixty Taxidermists (2015) with its track "For Ross": we had lost Ross Taggart in 2013. (The direct "for" title has its own lineage through the scene, including Lee and Cole Schmidt's Forever Stories Of: Moving Parties with "For Ron Miles".) On this record, I particularly love the air and purity in "Clementine" and "The Owl of Crowston".
Flicker Down (2021) earned Waxwing a nomination for Instrumental Artist of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards. (I used to predict award winners back when I had few friends; I predicted they'd win. but alas.) This style of a chamber ensemble recording an album of many short tracks – 18, in this case – is one that speaks to me a lot these days. They also include longer performances like the opening title track and "Joe's Theme".
One of Flicker Down's tracks has the same title as arguably the best-known release by Wilson's 6tet: A Day's Life (2015) with JP Carter, Lee, Jesse Zubot, Sholberg, and Brooks. The release of a short book preceded the album, making it a multimedia project like Wilson's Homeless Project, which VIFF mounted just eight weeks ago. The 6tet plays riff-based composition, tunes that swing, and meditative pieces. I noticed all the straight-tone trumpet from Carter, as opposed to the diverse effects you always hear him use. On "The Train Keeps Rollin", Wilson uncorks the energy.
On Pearls Before Swine (2007), the 6tet includes Masa Anzai on saxophone instead of Lee on cello. They use "I Am The Walrus" as a launchpad for noise-rock and play a funny polka freak-out on "Horn'in In". Taking in the more sensitive pieces as well, I get a similar effect from this collection of music as I do from Sick Boss.
The Tony Wilson Sextet was distinct from the 6tet. The People Look Like Flowers at Last (2009) featured Kevin Elaschuk, Dave Say, Lee, Paul Blaney, and Dylan van der Schyff. Titled after a Bukowski poem, the record lands for me somewhere between Sick Boss and Mary Halvorson's Amaryllis sextet. Most of the material comes from a Benjamin Britten piece, which links it to a John Korsrud Absolute Unit show I attended this year; then there's Wilson's "Let The Monkeys Dance," which is also the title of a band he shared with Joe Williamson. ("We were in London, and we went to Amsterdam, and then we were in Paris. I was playing music on the street with Tony Wilson," Williamson said in our interview this year.)
Wilson recorded Last Days of the Wild West (2010) on Denman Island with the local, American-born pianist Annie Siegel and two musicians active in Hornby Island's arts scene: bassist Dana Inglis and drummer Darryl Bohn. Their "Shenendoah" rolls along smoothly with Siegel's vocals, departing from the sweeping cinema of Bill Frisell's (or indeed Daniel Hersog's) version. Their "Barbara Allen" sounds so unlike both the "jazz" versions I know well: Dave Douglas' and Caroline Davis'. "D Minor Blues" is one of my favourite showcases of Wilson playing bebop language that I've yet heard. You can tell the musicians are having a good time by how casually they treat the ending.
Wilson played "Danny Boy" on Last Days, but a couple years before he did that, he used the song to end a solo record that he recorded on Hornby: Horse's Dream (2005 or 2006). It's mostly a solo project with brief appearances by Jesse Zubot and Bob Grant, and it sounds like they edited it down and spliced it together from longer playing and exploring. The fuzz adventures are joined by clean fingerpicking and some acoustic guitar. Lonesome "Hornbilly", with its Celtic resolutions, is the most memorable track for me.
