Skip & Dan Wilkins Quartet

In the Stars

Deer Head

At this same time almost exactly three years ago we reviewed Someday from the Skip and Dan Wilkins Quartet, an homage to the Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap, PA, relatively local for this writer. Yes, it’s a rather unlikely spot to find a jazz club but the Deer Head Inn is the oldest continuously running jazz club in the country, marked by its three stories, with two balconies and the subhead sign that reads, “Food -Jazz- Lodging.” Now we have In the Stars from the same cast with the album photography very similar as is the music. Consider this an encore, post pandemic style. The sound of this saxophone quartet, like the ambience of the Inn, is warm and sweet as they dig into mostly overlooked standards from The Great American Songbook.

Pianist Skip Wilson has lived in the upstairs apartment in the Deer Head Inn’s original carriage house since 2012 (when not spending the other six months of the year in his residence in Prague) and prior to that, the Inn served as a getaway for him and his family. The resident pianist chose drummer Bill Goodwin, a fellow resident along with his son, Dan Wilkins, on tenor saxophone as well as long-time collaborator, bassist Tony Marino. Some of these names should be familiar to you as Marino is a longtime collaborator with Dave Liebman and Dan Wilkins is the leader of the Horizons Quartet, the debut of which we covered on these pages in 2021. {Note: if you source the 2019 review on these pages, you’ll note that certain passages of the copy are similar, if not identical}

Skip writes extensively in the liners about his experiences at the Inn and what it means to him and also about the genesis of this recording, spending a good deal of time discussing how they navigated through the pandemic.  This recording was originally planned for a 2020 release until the pandemic took hold. The quartet was able to reconvene their sessions in July 2021 and recorded enough material for two albums. This is the first of those, released at a time when we can gather to enjoy live music. While these are nine standards are from familiar composers, the tunes themselves are not ones that are often covered. Skip says, “During the last decade, I have found special delight in unearthing new-old material that isn’t played and recorded constantly.” The composers are Hoagie Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, Blossom Dearie, Kurt Weill, Antônio Carlos Jobim, E.Y. Harburg, and George Gershwin along with a couple of lesser knowns. The album is dedicated to the great NEA Jazz Master Phil Woods who Skip has the opportunity to play with often as a member of the Festival Orchestra.

This is swinging music akin to the find you might fine in late ‘50s – early ‘60s recordings from tenor giants such as Coleman Hawkins, Zoot Sims, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and others. This is especially true on Carmichael/Mercer’s “I Walk with Music,” Jobim’s “Brigas nunca mais,” “I’m Making Believe,” and the closing Kern/Hammerstein “Why Do I Love You?”  These are the tunes where Dan’s robust, pure toned tenor are best captured while Skip’s piano goes well beyond his comping and stellar rhythm support, into inventive improvisation throughout but best exemplified on Weill’s “Lost In The Stars”, “I’ll Never Smile Again”, Dearie’s “Sweet Georgie Fame”, and “I’m Making Believe”. 

As previously stated, this is authentic, tried and true jazz, free of ostentatious showmanship. It’s four closely knit musicians playing for the joy of the music. It’s the kind of music you can expect to hear on a visit to the historic Deer Head Inn. Put it on your bucket list. Maybe I will even see you there.

• Jim Hynes

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