Deitz plays his dream venue with a quintet.
When native Madisonian Wilder Deitz played at the Stoughton Opera House with the UW Russian Folk Orchestra a couple of years ago, he fell in love with the space. He knew it was a long shot, but he became consumed with the idea of returning there eventually to perform with his own band. He even stuck a copy of the venue’s schedule on his piano so he would have to look at it every time he practiced.
Apparently, that’s an effective motivational technique: The Wilder Deitz Group makes its Stoughton Opera House debut on Oct. 2.
“It’s by far the biggest place we’ve played,” says Deitz. “It’s an awesome venue and a huge honor to be booked there.”
Deitz’s base unit is a trio consisting of him on keys, Ben Johnson on bass and Joe Galligan on drums. He beefs up the band as needed. For this show, Deitz is bringing a quintet, with the addition of frequent collaborator Alex Charland on saxophone and Ben Ferris, a first-time accomplice, on bass.
You read that right: There are two bass players. Johnson will be playing more traditional walking lines using pizzicato, or finger-plucking, technique. Ferris will be playing arco, or bowed, adding more melodic lines, filling a role you might more commonly hear from a low-end horn, like a bass trombone. Deitz says his use of two basses is influenced in part by renowned bassist — and Deitz’s UW professor — Richard Davis, who has employed a similar two-bass approach on some of his solo albums.
The band’s style is hard to pigeonhole. The group will mostly play originals penned by Deitz, with a few Charland compositions mixed in. They’re calling it jazz, but Deitz says their stuff is informed by a huge variety of genres, “from Debussy and Chopin to hip-hop and Arab folk music.”
“People expect certain things when they hear ‘jazz,’ and it’s important to respect that tradition,” Deitz says. “But at the same time, part of the tradition is doing your own thing and drawing inspiration from the sources that are real to you.”
Deitz notes, for example, that he grew up listening to a lot of folk, country, mountain music and bluegrass. His father, musician Ritt Deitz, is from Kentucky, and still performs those styles.
“We try to pull out the best parts of many kinds of music and find new ways to put them together,” says Deitz. “There’s so much great stuff out there. I feel like we shouldn’t have to compromise just to make it fit into a genre.”
