On his stunning new album, Wellspring, Gershwin draws evocative inspiration from that constant, close-to-home reminder that the currents of energy and life continually flow through and around us, needing only to be tapped into and meditated upon in order to be channeled into vibrant creation. For Gershwin, music itself is a wellspring, offering a boundless supply of vitality, replenished by its own undercurrents of tradition and history.

“The wellspring became a really powerful image for me,” Gershwin explains, “celebrating the process of renewal, transformation, and regeneration of energy. I realized it’s one of the clearest ways to describe how music moves me when it resonates.”

Wellspring convenes a stellar quintet largely composed of the bandleader’s longtime collaborators. Gershwin has counted saxophonist Mike Bjella as one of his closest friends for more than 20 years; the two also share the frontline on Gershwin’s 2018 sextet release, Our Season. Guitarist Perry Smith was a classmate at NYU, where he studied with John Scofield, and paired with Gershwin for the latter’s intimate debut album, Sweet Pastimes. Drummer Colin Stranahan, winner of the 2012 Thelonious Monk Drum Competition, is a fellow Colorado native whose path would cross with Gershwin’s often during their earliest days in music.

The one new addition to the fold is David Ambrosio, a recommendation from co-producer and audio engineer George Walker Petit. One of New York City’s finest bassists, Ambrosio performs regularly with the likes of Joe Lovano, Ingrid Jensen, and Donny McCaslin. “The combination felt really special from the very first take,” Gershwin says. “David was a huge part of that group sound, and it all came together magically from the get-go.”

A large part of that magic was generated by Gershwin’s writing for the group, a profound balance of intricate composition and provocative open spaces. The resulting music is simultaneously captivating and meditative; picture a walk through a lush forest, dense with trees and foliage while offering vast, meandering pathways and open air in which to breathe and explore.

The album’s cover image is a subtle suggestion of that notion, a stark black-and-white woodcut print of the cross section of a tree that had fallen in the wellspring behind Gershwin’s home. In the context of the album the tree’s rings mirror the grooves of a vinyl LP – both of them visually striking means of capturing time within concentric circles.

The restorative emotion infused into the music of Wellspring directly mirrors the balm that Gershwin finds in the natural environment, he says. “There’s an unselfconscious flow to it that eases my indecisive and grasping states of mind. The natural world has a clarifying effect. If I enter the woods with an angry trudge or aimless steps, the surroundings welcome whatever I bring; they hold space for it and let it dissolve.”

“Embers,” which arrives midway through the setlist, provided the impetus for the album as a whole. The song’s delicate but radiant feel immediately suggested the mood that would carry Gershwin through the entire project, the idea of embers in a wood-burning stove epitomizing the album’s central theme of renewal. Not only are the glowing embers a source of warmth amid the harshness of winter, but they form the foundation for new logs, and by extension new life, to ignite.

The title track illustrates the wellspring’s flow via the pulsing theme stated by Gershwin, Bjella and Smith. Throughout the album, Gershwin takes care to navigate the various combinations offered by the line-up, transforming a basic quintet into myriad variations. Nowhere is that better illustrated than on “Passages,” which occupies one entire side of the LP and continually evolves into different patterns throughout its 15-minute length. “We transform by moving through things,” Gershwin says. “’Passages’ is about journeying in both an abstract sense and a literal sense.”

The tender “& You” is a song about relationships and gratitude. Gershwin says that teachers and mentors, whether in formal educational situations or just in the encounters we make through our lives, can be one of the most fruitful wellsprings of creativity. Co-written with Bjella, the propulsive “Counter Earth’s Turn” is a variation on Gershwin’s earlier tune “Counter Earth,” which the two had recorded together on Our Season. 

Opener “Let Be” and the later “Belong Here” are both miniatures, brief lyrical respites that provide a breath of relief on the album as they did during the recording session. They were recorded at the end of the two-day session, which had gone remarkably smoothly despite the demands of the compositions and the intense concentration required to maintain the music’s rapturous atmosphere. “They’re palate cleansers,” Gershwin says of the companion pieces. “Something had been released in us during the recording, and these two songs represented the space we were feeling from having gone through that experience.”

The experience was presided over by Petit at The Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, NY. A veteran of more than 100 recording projects, the engineer recognized the singular nature of the elusive chemistry shared by Gershwin’s quintet. “These fine gentlemen and monstrous players worked together to create a sound in the support of Tom’s compositions and vision that is absolutely remarkable,” Petit says. “Seldom have I had such a rewarding, fun and deeply musical project… The band absorbed not only the music, but the vibe and heart behind every tune, every note…Truly one of the finest records I have had the pleasure of working on.”

Wellspring closes with “Still,” a shimmering, drone-like piece that evokes the pristine stillness and preternatural silence of a brisk winter evening. It leaves the listener with the mesmerizing sensation of sitting before a roaring fireplace, feeling the icy tendrils of cold melt away as the sun fades to twilight outside. Tom Gershwin’s album is a striking statement of mood and expression, drawing from a deep and flowing well of inspiration and exploration.