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Justin Wood
After attending Harvard University, Justin moved to New York in 1999 to work as a union organizer and explore the city's music scene. He began performing in New York in 2001, and has performed around the city with diverse musical groups in venues including Birdland, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, NJ Performing Arts Center, the Knitting Factory, and the Garage. Rather than pursuing a conservatory education, he has learned from and been inspired by his peers, and through private lessons with top creative musicians such as Bill McHenry and Michel Gentile.
Currently, Justin continues to participate in diverse musical projects. He co-leads Spoke, an eclectic quartet with trombonist Andy Hunter, bassist Dan Loomis, and drummer Danny Fischer.
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SPOKE: (r)anthems
by Ernest Barteldes
On (r)anthems, the New York-based ensemble takes various pop classics and favorite World Music tunes and reinvents them into their own flavor, either going into a New Orleans-tinged feel or just improvising around the melody. An example is Stevie Wonder's “Tell Me Something Good," which is re-purposed here into a marching band-like vibe. The Beatles' “Blackbird" (incorrectly credited solely to Paul McCartney) begins with the original guitar line as a duet. The ensemble then improvises freely around the melody.
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by Dan Bilawsky
According to the members of SPOKE, this album--the band's third to date--"is both musical rant and anthem." So what does that mean? Well, it means that there's an intentional balancing act between the raw and refined, the focused and the untamed, and the grand and rowdy. Nothing ever goes off the rails and nothing is ever too sedate or bland, as the members of SPOKE continually switch gears and change hats. There's also enough stylistic diversity at play--pop, bop, spicy ...
read moreSpoke: Spoke
by J Hunter
In his liner notes to Spoke's self-titled debut disc, Matthew Lima wrote that this Brooklyn-based quartet is “constantly refining the art of the compromise... not into a concession or lowering of standards, but an intermediate between different things." He's half right: There are no concessions whatsoever on Spoke; however, the differences are what it's all about.
The thought that went into the set's twelve pieces is literally mind-bending. Classical music isn't just one of the musical sub-cultures Spoke visits on ...
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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson
Justin Wood
Location: New York City
Instrument: Saxophone, alto
Born: November 18, 1975
