When Dave Wilson was in his early teens, you’d likely find him hiding out in his bedroom riffing along on a harmonica to his favorite records. B.B. King, Eric Clapton, The Grateful Dead and Paul Butterfield were on heavy rotation, and Wilson, who already had excelled on the clarinet, realized his love for off-the-cuff performance.
“I really enjoyed improvising — just creating, making stuff up,” Wilson says.
When he was 15, he got his hands on John Coltrane’s “Coltrane ‘Live’ at the Village Vanguard.” The musical discovery would not just shape his personal tastes, but his career path as a jazz musician.
“That was really it for me,” Wilson says. He rented an alto saxophone briefly, then a tenor sax, and taught himself how to play for an hour every day.
Wilson, a saxophonist who combines traditional and modern styles, instructor and owner of Dave Wilson’s Musical Instruments, will celebrate the release of his fourth studio album, “There Was Never,” with a performance at Tellus360 Thursday night.
Wilson harkens back to those early days of improvising over pop songs on two tracks on his latest album —reinterpretations of “Cassidy” by the Grateful Dead and “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys.
“I end up taking the tune to some extent and reharmonizing it, just putting some of my own stuff in, like different intros,” Wilson says. “I’ll put a completely different intro or something that might have part of the melody. I’ll put in some different polyrhythmic type of stuff.”
“There Was Never” also features seven original compositions by Wilson. Each song was recorded in just two or three takes, which Wilson says can be partly attributed to the high caliber of musicians he worked with on the album: pianist Bobby Avey, acoustic bassist Tony Marino and drummer Alex Ritz. Avey, Marino and Ritz have previously played together with saxophonist Dave Liebman.
Wilson, of Bronxville, New York, didn’t receive formal music training until he went to college. He started at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, and transferred to Connecticut’s Wesleyan University. Even though he graduated with a degree in philosophy, Wilson still dedicated a lot of his time at Wesleyan to improving his saxophone playing. He studied with Bill Barron, tenor saxophonist and younger brother of pianist Kenny Barron.
“I got the chance really for the first time to meet and study with some top jazz instructors and meet fellow students who were serious musicians,” Wilson says. “I really got kind of a glimpse of the jazz world.”
Wilson moved to Lancaster in 1983, where his wife grew up. Looking for direction, he decided to go back to school and got a degree in music education from Lebanon Valley College. He says he came close to becoming a band director a few times.
The saxophonist says his move to Lancaster prompted taking his musicianship more seriously.
“It was in this area that I first started gigging, performing on a regular basis, every weekend,” says Wilson, who estimates that he plays 150 shows a year.
Wilson says he’s very proactive in creating his own gigs and approaching venues.
“For me, it was never about waiting by the phone and waiting for people to call me to play,” Wilson says.
In addition to his solo performances, Wilson has performed with local rock band Flashback, Reading trumpet player Dave Stahl, and Harrisburg Motown soul group Vinyl Groove.
Despite experimenting with different styles, he says his priority never wavered — he still wanted to play jazz.
When it comes to his original releases, Wilson says he wants to excite his audience.
“I want to try to meet the listener and have their ears perk up,” Wilson says.