Penn Jazz Director combines spirituality and inner resolve

“Oh god. You found the Twitter?” Wade Dean laughs and shakes his head.

He is probably thinking of the February 22 tweet: “Dear girls who think it’s cute to wear short shorts with Ugg Boots in February. Put on some damn sweatpants & use common sense. It’s cold!”

While the musician’s easy demeanor and polite manner suggest a polished facade, the glint of earrings divulge his spark of attitude.

Even at 5’4,” Dean easily commands attention, not to mention the stage. But instead of a tough Buddy Rich shell, he is obliging and sincere. His cavalier banter reveals an earnestness unusual in jazz musicians. Candid humor and honesty replace the ego entitlement of the typical jazz cat. But Dean is far from typical.

A Philadelphia saxophonist and the Penn Jazz Director, Dean started playing jazz saxophone in Orangeburg, S.C., as a teenager. Profits from warehouse ragers bought him a degree from University of South Carolina, and propelled him into the business side of the music industry.

As Dean puts it, “I don’t want to be the man who accepts the checks, I want to be the man who writes the checks.”

But working as an errand boy for his uncle, who worked in the music industry, he ended up accepting orders: waiting on B2K, Bow Wow, TRL and Destiny’s Child.

“So one day, my uncle comes up to me, hands me $500,” Dean recounts. “Go to the supermarket, and buy as many super-soakers as you can. They want to have a water fight in the hotel.”

Dean’s short-lived stunt with the spotlight left no time for his saxophone, and it wasn’t long before he was back to accepting checks — this time in Philadelphia.

This transition from industry to performance seemed natural. Dean’s flat caps, scarves and Converses blend easily into an urban setting, and the intimacy of the Philadelphia jazz scene complements his personable nature.

But big business or not, musicians have it rough now, he says.

“Music does not sound good today,” Dean speculates. “We’ve got these lightweight things that you know, they catch our attention for a minute, and then they go away. It doesn’t have that spirit.”

In a world that values spectacle over sound and materialism over merit, Dean’s music is described as “a breath of fresh air,” by Phrequency.com, a local online arts magazine. His band The Wade Dean Enspiration boasts a single misson: “to create sincere and unselfish music,” according to its MySpace.

This ambitious task is conceptually and technically daunting. How do they do it? “The Moan, man.” Dean shrugs. “My good friend used to call it the Moanin’ Wail.”

By ‘the Moan,’ Dean is citing an inner resolve and spirituality he says originated in church music and spilled over into jazz. It’s spirit, determination, sex, fear, morality, hope and history, all rolled up into one driving pulse. As Dean says, “You gotta have that yoke on your back, you know?”

The Moan appears to seep into other aspects of Dean’s life as well. His Facebook statuses advocate social action, and his tweets encourage political consciousness.

At Philadelphia jazz venues, he is notorious for waving students over to his own table, where he will pull up a chair and introduce them to other guests.

Wednesday night, Dean will be playing at Time, on 1315 Sansom St., for the last time this school year. Come by and introduce yourself, and you will be very well received.

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