Last night, I spent a jazz-filled hour and a half at the Kerrytown concert house, listening to the Matt Wilson Quartet. In all honesty, it was one of the best jazz performances I’ve seen all year. The band was inspiring, intimate, and creative, coming up with a plethora of improvisational ideas over the course of the evening. Wilson’s instrumentation, with Chris Lightcap on bass, Jeff Lederer on tenor saxophone and clarinet, and Kirk Knuffke on cornet, was way on point. Lightcap played with some of the best phrasing I’ve ever heard, Lederer soloed with so much conviction and energy its was palpable, and Knuffke managed to paint pictures with his sound.

Still, Wilson stood out, partly because it’s just amazing to watch him play. Sure, he smiles and shouts encouragement like any other jazz musician, maybe even makes a funny face or two, but the real beauty is the way he handles the drums, making them look like an extension of his body. Every hit of a cymbal or snare looks effortless, but not the easy kind, the kind where the drum appears to know when his hand is going to hit and presents itself at the right moment. Wilson’s arms never seem to stop or jerk around, instead they are always moving in one fluid motion.

The highlights of the evening were an original composition, “Raga” and a rendition of Duke Ellington’s “You Dirty Dog.” For “Raga,” the song started with every member of the band playing tuned hand bells. It was one of those moments where it could either be completely boring and lose the audience’s attention, or they would pull something out at the end that made it all worth it. They went with the latter, exploding into a raucous klezmer-ish melody with Wilson playing everything from hand drums to brazilian cymbals. On Wilson’s extended solo, he literally explored every single sound on a tiny hand drum, using just his fingers and a single stick. At one point, he was just scraping the stick on the different surfaces of the drum, but he did it so rhythmically that it lost and gimmicky aspect and was received as genuine musical communication. On the Ellington piece, the band swung as hard as any, and the horns managed to stay modern with their sounds, not resorting to any boring blues riffs.

The greatest part of the performance was the way you could feel the band’s energy, and feel that they truly played for their audience. They were cracking jokes the whole time (at one point, wilson put his foot on the snare drum to the change the tone while soloing, then stopped abruptly, made a funny comment about his socks, then kept on soloing). The Quartet hit that sweet spot in this age of contemporary jazz, the spot where the audience actually understands what you’re playing and wants to listen to it.

Erez Dessel is a contributor to Adlai Reinhart’s music blog. Check out this story on the blog by clicking here.