Matt Wilson’s Carl Sandburg Project

Nearly five years ago, drummer Matt Wilson brought a quartet into a fledgling, soon-to-be shuttered jazz nook called Brilliant Corners in downtown St. Paul and blew about sixty listeners away with music that blended visceral skronk with the sort of exotically forceful swing that could summon forth dancing elephants. Now former Brilliant Corners proprietor Jeremy Walker runs Jazz is NOW!, the nonprofit organization bringing Wilson (who has a justifiably higher profile these days) back to town for a gig that will weave the poetry of Carl Sandburg with Wilson’s original compositions. The band includes superb bassist-composer Ben Allison, vocalist/guitarist Dawn Thompson, and reed man Jeff Lederer, a holdover from that Brilliant Corners Wilson quartet.

8 p.m., Minnesota Opera Center, 620 N. First St., Minneapolis; 612-333-6669.