‘The great thing about jazz is, to me, improvised music: You’re seeing the brushstrokes put on there in the moment.’

Matt Wilson, Baldwin

“I like to think of myself as a musical ‘impresario’ because it’s more vivid than ‘entrepreneur.’ Nothing against entrepreneurs, but impresario means you’re embracing the whole production aspect. In our show at Birdland, for our new album ‘Good Trouble,’ I was thinking a lot about the presentation of the music. I had banners made to put on the stands, and I had temporary tattoos made.

The great thing about jazz is, to me, improvised music: You’re seeing the brushstrokes put on there in the moment. I want the presentation to be together, but I don’t want it to be routine. I’d much rather have something go way above and have something else fail, rather than have everything be at that midlevel.

He let me try out his drums — and it felt like home.

“In the early ’70s, I was in first or second grade, and I saw an episode of ‘Here’s Lucy’ where Lucy and her son go to see Buddy Rich, the legendary drummer. I always liked music as a kid, and when I saw that, it started. Then our Lutheran church, that was in Knoxville, Illinois, where I grew up, did a musical. They hired high school kids as musicians. I still remember the drummer, Rex. He let me try out his drums — and it felt like home.

“I started lessons, and we would play at PTA meetings, churches. I was in a rock band when I was 15. Then I went to Wichita State as a percussion major.

“Because I’m teaching, I’m around great young people and great colleagues. I want to invite people in, whether it’s a workshop, at the community garden or our Avant Yarde Jazz Festival.

One time, I was doing a workshop at a convention, and I hired this vending company that for $75 would deliver a popcorn machine. So people walk in, people I knew or I met there, and I say, ‘Come here, you can make the popcorn and hand it out.’ They’re walking in thinking they’re going to a drum clinic, which it is, but then they’re handing out popcorn. They’re smelling it and saying, ‘What’s going on?’ It gets them; they’re going to pay a little more attention.

Once in a while, I have a character I do: ‘The Allower,’ and I have a shirt with an insignia that I kind of dramatically reveal. I want people to play their best — I don’t know what that is all the time. But I want to ‘allow’ them to try their thing.”

Interviewed by Rosemary Olander Beach