Ben Wendel Quartet at the Village Vanguard

Ben Wendel. Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
Ben Wendel. Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
Rating
4.7/5

Tonight it was The Ben Wendel Quartet at the Village Vanguard. This jazz club is a sacred space in the music world. Tonight, four world-class musicians of the Ben Wendel Quartet honored a stage home to the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Mingus, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Carmen McRae, and the Modern Jazz Quartet, to name a few. For every artist who comes here, there are great shoes to fill, and there are high expectations for the foot-tapping audience hungry for a groove and fireworks.

Expectations were met and more. We were transfixed as these members of the jazz fraternity hit the first chord with a groove and elan. With the first note of Wendel’s composition February, it was clear that tonight was a celebration of creativity, virtuosity, and incredible solos of improvisational artistry. We experienced a range of frenetic power, driving, and angular energy. Several others of Wendel’s compositions followed, like Simple Song, Lou, an Untitled new work, and Tao. They finished with Song Song by Brad Mehldau.

The Village Vanguard at Night. Photo by Tom Marcello

The Village Vanguard at Night. Photo by Tom Marcello

Wendel possesses tremendous energy, mirrored by his band that interacted seamlessly. Linda May Han Oh was in the groove immediately as she drove solid bass lines of rich color and variety on the full range of her instrument. Drummer Obed Calvaire kept it fresh with incredible rhythmic colors that, if you didn’t see him, you might think two people were playing. Pianist Gerald Clayton supported Wendel and built on Oh’s bass offerings to provide a rich, freely chromatic accompaniment to Wendel’s elegant musings. Clayton’s solos were just right for the venue and stayed as fresh as all the quartet put forth. His extended introduction to the laid-back groove of Song Song was smooth and sophisticated.

Wendel’s songs are strikingly original, expressive, and extraordinarily inventive. His ideas and improvisations are freely chromatic, virtuosic, and organic, and he employed subtle be-bop idioms when it suited him. His facility is so commanding that he regularly reaches into the stratosphere of the tenor saxophone’s extended range. Notably, he can express ideas with the restraint of Lester Young while employing the pyrotechnics of Charlie Parker.

These cats were intensely focused on playing music that evolved quickly over complex structures. There was perhaps an urgent beauty. Players thought at high speed versus falling into regular patterns; powerful fresh creativity separated these great artists from lesser folk. Thelonious Monk once explained to a young trumpet player that solos are best when the solo emanates from the melody, not just chord changes. Years later, drummer Joe Morello echoed that concept to me as he explained that the moment a soloist, including drummers, forgets the melody, everyone else knows it, and the music becomes mechanical and falls flat. Morello thought that his early years of studying violin helped form his idea of a song’s melody driving the aural imagination of improvisation. Tonight’s epic creative energy might best be described as Le Jazz Hot, as attributed to the eponymous French publication that intellectualized jazz journalism.

Ben Wendel Quartet

Ben Wendel, Tenor Saxophone
Gerald Clayton, Piano
Linda May Han Oh, Bass
Obed Calvaire, Drums

The Village Vanguard

178 7th Ave. South
New York NJ  10014

Info and Reservations or click https://villagevanguard.com/

Readers may also enjoy our reviews of Bill Charlap at BirdlandThe Wood Brothers with the Kat Wright Trio at MPAC, and Vanessa Williams at 54 Below,  

Ben Wendel Quartet at the Village Vanguard

PLEASE COMMENT & SIGN UP

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

More to explore...

The home of Electric Lemon at 33 Hudson Yards, New York NY. Photo by Sora Vernikoff

Electric Lemon at Hudson Yards

The Electric Lemon restaurant is located at the top of the five-star Equinox Hotel in Hudson Yards. The rooftop bar boasts an 8,000-square-foot rooftop garden with a monumental Jaume Plensa sculpture. It overlooks the Hudson River and the city skyline. They possess a wide range of food and drinks, from light bites to seasonal offerings at dinner and rooftop brunch on the weekends. It’s open all year round because of the sleek and expansive dining room and fire-pits on the al fresco terrace.

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Photo from the official trailer. Public Domain

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

I suppose that the title of my blog post, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is a little misleading because it turned out to be Dinner at Tiffany’s, or more accurately, Dinner at the Blue Box Café. This Cafe honors the romance of the 1961 film starring Audrey Hepburn. Tiffany’s of course was the romantic setting where the lovely Audrey Hepburn went each morning with a pastry and cup of coffee to have breakfast as she window shopped. You might add Breakfast at Tiffany’s to your movie viewing list if you’ve missed it. The song Moon River will have new meaning for you!

Josie de Guzman at The Green Room 42. Photo by Edward Kliszus

Josie de Guzman at The Green Room 42

Two-time Tony Award nominee Josie de Guzman performed her show “Back Where I Started” and enthralled listeners at The Green Room 42.The enchanting and vivacious de Guzman performed a musical biopic of her remarkable stage career. She spoke of the many fellow luminaries with whom she performed and collaborated. The amazing list includes Leonard Bernstein, Nathan Lane, Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, Alan Jay Lerner, and Burton Lane, to name a few.

0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x