The Parts You Keep Mike Pope

• 1 Misgivings 06:58
• 2 Steeplechase 04:14
• 3 Giant Steps 06:44
• 4 Dashan's Flying Ubercar 07:01
• 5 That Old Feeling 09:24
• 6 Barolo Blue (44,1 kHz) 04:33
• 7 Past is Prologue 05:02
• 8 The Parts You Keep 08:30
• 9 Sphärenmusik from Winterreigen, Opus 13 No. 5 05:52
• Total Runtime 58:18

Info for The Parts You Keep

Bassist, composer, and recording engineer Mike Pope taps into the music and musicians who represent several pivotal life phases over his striking 30-year career, as well as from broad positions in the great timeline of jazz. From trumpeter Randy Brecker, a foundational figure in modern jazz, to saxophonist Roxy Coss, a brilliant leader representing the next guard, to the young guitarist Amaury Cabral who Pope heard at Berklee, they join Pope contemporaries, pianist Geoffrey Keezer and drummer Nate Smith, for a vivid set of originals, along with modern arrangements of music from Bird and Coltrane. Of note, Pope traveled to Atlanta to record his 85-year-old mother, an accomplished classical pianist, as a centerpiece of the closing track "The Parts You Keep." Imagined as a reminiscence of his youth when he'd wake up to his mother practicing, Pope inserts her performance into the piece, wrapping up the album with her solo rendition of the Ernst von Dohnányi piece it was derived from.

"5-STARS Mike Pope's Sonic Architecture: A Jazz Tapestry of Intellect, Emotion, and Mastery. Internationally acclaimed composer and bassist Mike Pope has long stood at the confluence of intellect and intuition in jazz. With his latest album, he offers a grand, ambitious work that speaks directly to those who crave music with depth, complexity, a ..." (Thierry De Clemensat, Paris Move)

Geoffrey Keezer, piano, Fender Rhodes
Mike Pope, bass
Nate Smith, drums
Randy Brecker, trumpet & flugelhorn (tracks 5, 7)
Roxy Coss, tenor & soprano saxophone (tracks 2, 3, 6, 8)
Amaury Cabral, guitar (tracks 2, 6, 7, 8)
Ann Almond Pope, classical piano (tracks 8, 9)
Yu-Ting Wu, violin 1 (tracks 5, 7)
Jennifer Houck, violin 2 (tracks 5, 7)
Ivan Mendoza, viola (tracks 5, 7)
Peter Kibbe, violoncello (tracks 5, 7)

Recorded October 9-10, 2022
Recorded, mixed & mastered by Mike Pope at Vatican City Sound, Marriottsville, MD
Produced by Mike Pope

Please Note: This album consists of different sampling rates. See track list - behind each track you'll find the sampling rate.

Mike Pope
was born in the college town of Bowling Green, Ohio in 1970 to well-trained classical musicians and educators. They brought Mike up to listen to all music with discriminating ears and instilled a profound respect for the art form that brought the spiritual and emotional wealth into their home.

By the age of fifteen, Mike was playing bass with the Bowling Green State University Lab Band and sneaking up to Toledo to play in funky little jazz clubs with guys like Eddie Abrams, an aging, local piano legend that had been loosely associated with Bird and other Be Bop giants. With a growing street cred and paying gigs with all the best guys around, Mike knew his future demanded serious refinement so he took off to North Texas State in search of his destiny. It was there that Mike met the musical challenges that he needed to get to the next level. It was at North Texas that Mike encountered the legendary Michael Brecker who was instrumental in coaxing Mike up to NYC to get his own bite of the Big Apple.

It didn’t take long for the cream to rise to the top and in a blink of an eye Mike was working with some of the brightest stars in and around NYC. And when the people you’ve played with run the gamut from Michael Brecker, Blood Sweat and Tears, The Gil Evans Orchestra and Chick Corea to The Roche Sisters, Manhattan Transfer, Lenny Pickett and Blue Lou Marini, you’re no longer just an instrumentalist or a bass player, you’ve become a musician.

In the fall of 2011 Mike was a fit, trim, vibrant young man who was highly motivated to pursue his promising career when nature knocked him to his knees. He found himself in the Brain Rescue Unit of a hospital in Baltimore while being told he had bleeding in his right frontal lobe. After a brief and difficult recovery period Mike was back at it – playing, writing and engineering his latest album “Cold Truth, Warm Heart.” This wake up call and its impact on his world took time to digest but it has been a life-altering event. The intensity, conviction and passion Mike has for life has been made even more resolute since this brush with mortality, and has served to light the fire Mike puts into every note he writes or plays.

Now living in Maryland where, as he puts it, Mike is touring, writing, arranging and practicing music as much as his schedule allows. He’s currently the Creator in Residence at Trickfish Amplification and proprietor of Vatican City Sound, designing exciting new gear and recording music that he loves.

This album contains no booklet.