Bennett Wood Steps Up to the Plate

The album's title track draws inspiration from baseball history, particularly the stories of Negro League players like Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. Wood reflects on these athletes' struggles and achievements, using their stories as a springboard to explore broader themes of human experience and perseverance.

"They were all-time greats whose achievements were not celebrated and recognized to the same degree as their white counterparts during their lifetimes," says Wood. "As I wrote “Space in Time” I thought about those players and more generally, the state of the human condition. None of us get to choose the time in which we live, but we have the choice to bring light into the moments we are given."

The album closes with an emotional take on the standard "For All We Know."

"I wanted to find harmonic colors that express the lyric as I read it," says Wood. "I initially conceived the reharmonization while working to emotionally process the loss of a friend to suicide in 2018, but my experience of that lyric took on additional complexity with the sudden death of my mother due to complications from a hemorrhagic stroke in 2022. For me, there’s a through-line from “Space in Time,” the opening chords of which came to me while sitting at the piano with my mother physically there at my side, to “For All We Know.”"

In addition to Wood on tenor, the lineup features Andrew Ouellette (piano), Bob DeBoo (bass), and Joseph Winstein-Hibbs (drums). Grammy-nominated trombonist Alan Ferber guests on two tracks, the Latin-tinged "Fourth Wall" and the Monk-inspired "Obfuscation."

Wood, recently appointed as Director of Jazz Studies at Webster University, brings a wealth of experience to his debut. He's performed with jazz luminaries like Nat Adderley Jr., Sean Jones, and Maria Schneider, and has held academic positions at several universities.

Visit the artist's website for more information.