Mark Wade Trio - True Stories (2022)

Modern jazz composer and bassist Mark Wade is open to appreciating and co-creating great music in all its forms, and clearly not limited by genre. True Stories, his fourth album, shows the breadth of his musicality and inventive compositional style. Eight original tracks (and one cover) were inspired by a wide range of influences, drawing on themes from composers such as Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Igor Stravinsky. The result: a unique expression of jazz linking past to present.

Wade’s critical success has led to him being named one of the top bassists of the year for five of the last six years in the Downbeat Magazine Reader’s Poll. He received international acclaim for his trio with the 2015 recording Event Horizon on Edition 46 Records and the 2018 follow up Moving Day on AMP Music & Records. In 2020 he launched a unique solo project—a visual album. Debuted online from the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music in Durban, South Africa, Songs from Isolation was released worldwide on AMP Music & Records. It features acoustic and electric bass and the plethora of sounds those instruments can create. The tunes are accompanied by music videos created by the bassist. (His camera and editing skills had blossomed during New York City’s COVID-19 lockdown.)

That sonic and technological exploration was a fascinating prelude to his next project. True Stories is a modern jazz compendium inspired by a lifetime of listening—a leap forward fueled by looking back. The album features long-time Mark Wade Trio pianist Tim Harrison and drummer Scott Neumann. It is released in March 2022 by Amp Music & Records and available from fine retailers everywhere.

Michigan born, Wade moved to New Jersey as a child. He began his musical journey by teaching himself to play electric bass at age 14. At New York University, renowned bassist Mike Richmond encouraged him to take up acoustic bass for jazz and to hone bow technique and sight-reading abilities. That also enabled him to play European classical music. In 1997 he earned a B.A. in music with a concentration in jazz.

Remaining in NYC, Wade has since performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Blue Note, The Iridium and Birdland. He is a former artist in residence at Flushing Town Hall and tours in North America and Europe. He has played with jazz notables James Spaulding, Eddie Palmieri, Conrad Herwig, Harry Whitaker, Stacey Kent, Don Byron and Jimmy Heath, and is a member of the Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra. On the classical side, he has appeared with Key West Symphony, Orchestra of the S.E.M./Janacek Philharmonic (Czech Republic) at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and performed with Orchestra of the Bronx and Bronx Opera.

Wade directs New Music Horizons, which promotes the work of emerging jazz and classical composers. Concert sites include the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Flushing Town Hall, The Clemente cultural center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Sunnyside Community Services in Queens and Art House Astoria. He also serves as artistic director for Art in the Park and the Annapolis Jazz & Roots Festival in Maryland. Formerly a teaching artist with the New York Pops, he has been on the jazz faculty at Lehigh University since 2017.