They may be called baseless and they may, in fact, have no bass in their trio, but the talent of The Baseless Trio is undeniable.<\/p>\n
Made up of Gabe Perry on piano, Aiden Wilson on guitar and Dexter Sales on drums, the group is this year\u2019s recipient of the Chuck Loeb Ensemble Scholarship and will perform at the Boscov\u2019s Berks Jazz Fest.<\/p>\n
The group first played together at Christmastime and found they had chemistry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played at a church,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cAnd then we decided to do this as a group. We play great together, and we thought it would be fun to do it as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson, 16 and a junior at Muhlenberg High School, has played guitar for four years and credits his love and expertise in the guitar to his teacher, Carl Zeplin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started with the blues,\u201d he said. \u201cBut my teacher, Carl Zeplin, introduced me to jazz. I had never really listened to it before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s hooked. He considers Zeplin his mentor, as well as guitarist Jimmy Bruno.<\/p>\n
\u201cI listen to him a lot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wilson was in 2:5:1 with Perry, and they were last year\u2019s runner-up to So What! for the Loeb scholarship. Sales was the drummer for So What!, whose other members moved on to college, so he was looking for a new ensemble.<\/p>\n
Sales said he\u2019s played a few times with So What! when Noah Gibney and Esteban Ruiz were home on college breaks, but he was very happy to find a place in a new trio.<\/p>\n
Sales, 16 and a junior at Wilson High School, said he was initially leery about playing in a group without a bassist, but thought he\u2019d give it a try.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have an ensemble,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I wanted to \u2014 and it really has worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sales selected \u201cNika\u2019s Dream\u201d by Horace Silver as one of their two audition songs. Although usually played with a bass, Sales said he was able to replicate the sound on the drums.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to pick a song that didn\u2019t need a bassist,\u201d he said, \u201cBut I realized I could replicate the bass pattern on my bass drum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sales is in the thick of college decision making and wants to continue in music. He\u2019s looking into schools such as the Manhattan School of Music and Temple University. Even Julliard is on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really want to pursue jazz drum set performance,\u201d he said, adding that he might minor in something like music production. \u201cI\u2019m excited to start applying.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a senior at Schuylkill Valley High School, Perry, 17, already knows he\u2019ll be continuing his music journey at Kutztown University, likely majoring in commercial music studies.<\/p>\n
Perry rounds out the trio on the piano, which he\u2019s been playing since elementary school. Following an early love\/hate relationship with the instrument (and practicing) his youth pastor showed him a few ways to improvise on the piano, and Perry changed his mind about the instrument and the type of music to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what got me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
So, it\u2019s no surprise that he prefers jazz to other genres.<\/p>\n
He appreciates all the different nuances of jazz.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith jazz you can see all the different colors of music,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n
Perry suggested The Baseless Trio choose Mile Davis\u2019s \u201cBlue in Green\u201d as an audition song \u2014 after he tweaked the arrangement a bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was published by Miles Davis,\u201d he said. \u201cBill Evans wrote it, and he is my favorite piano player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perry said he was \u201ckind of messing around\u201d with the piece and embellished the arrangement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t stray too far from the melody,\u201d he said. \u201cDexter added a part to it, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s not sure composing is in his future, but arranging will be as he likes to add his own flair to the music that is already there.<\/p>\n
All three were looking forward to the awards ceremony, which was held on Thursday, where they performed and were presented with their scholarship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels great that the effort you\u2019re putting into the instrument and then having fun but also seeing the outcome,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cBig thanks to RMF and Berks Arts for that. These scholarship opportunities really help to see where you can improve.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $750 scholarship given by the Reading Musical Foundation in conjunction with Berks Arts honors the memory of jazz guitarist Chuck Loeb, a much-beloved staple of the Berks Jazz Fest until his death in 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They may be called baseless and they may, in fact, have no bass in their trio, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1681,1213,128,130,129,289],"class_list":["post-146796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-entertainment","tag-music-and-concerts","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}