In his classic book Applied Imagination, author Alex Osborn describes true originality as simply taking previous ideas, mixing them together and creating your own signature of them. Such is the brilliance of bassist/composer Mark Wade, who brings his team of pianist Tim Harrison and drummer Scott Neumann to weave together thoughts from musical giants with his own to form a Raphaelesque tapestry of musical charms.
For instance, Wade intertwines the mood of Miles Davis “Freedom Jazz Dance” around Neumann’s crisp sticks for a deftly suave “I Feel More Like I Do Now”, while Wayne Shorter’s “Fall” mixes Harrison’s glassy chords and Wade’s sowing seams together for a cleverly floating “Falling Delores”. Wade’s bass thickly throbs through the dreamy interpretation of Stravinsky’s world on “The Soldier and the Fiddle” and adroitly grasps the mind of Charles Mingus’s temperament as he changes dynamics, moods and colors on “Song With Orange and Other Things”, bowing her, giving high pitched pizzicatos there and grooving everywhere.
Neumann’s brushes sashay around the Harrison’s blue fingers and Wade’s visceral line on the Fred Hersch-imbibed “Piscataway Went That-A-Way”, and the leader exudes pathos around Harrison’s rubato of the mind melding meeting of the leader with Frank Kimbrough during “A Simple Song”. For those with a knowledge of jazz’s history, this album is a joy to figure out “what belongs to who” while taking it in, while those who don’t know Duke Ellington from George Duke will still appreciate the joy and enthusiasm of the interplay. Check this one out!