Home »
Jazz Articles » Album Review » Corpulent: Wolfwalk
Corpulent: Wolfwalk
Although jazz comprises no more than 4% of CD sales nationally, there exists a cornucopia of good to excellent jazz musiciansfemale vocalists, pianists, and saxophonists especially. You can put 44-year-old Baltimore native Gary Thomas in the "excellent" column. Having played with trumpeters Miles Davis and Wallace Roney, Thomas is currently the Director of Jazz Studies at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. At the time of the
Wolfwalk recording in June of last year, Swedish-born bassist Joel Grip and drummer Devin Gray were both students there.
While he's respected among jazz musicians for his forward thinking, the public's awareness of Thomas sadly remains low. Wolfwalk will hopefully change that. The new trio date walks the line between modern mainstream and free jazz, tilting more towards the latter. The seven original compositions, which almost blend into one fifty-minute extended piece, are characterized by the dark, brooding, searching sound of Thomas' saxophone, coupled with the beefy, full bass of Grip and the gentle explosions of Gray. Listening closely to one another, the three take the music where their impulses dictatethe outer, yet still accessible realms of jazz music. Wolfwalk is cutting edge. True jazz fans will find this music enlightening.
Track Listing
Gryphus Medley; Slow Bluuesss; Who
Personnel
Devin Gray: drums; Joel Grip: bass; Gary Thomas: tenor saxophone.
Album information
Title: Wolfwalk
| Year Released: 2005
| Record Label: Umlaut Records
PREVIOUS / NEXT
Support All About Jazz

All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.
Go Ad Free!
To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to
future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by
making a donation today.