Ben Wendel - Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard

Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard is the new album from master saxophonist Ben Wendel featuring the superstar team of Gerald Clayton – Piano, Linda May Han Oh – Bass, Vocals and Obed Calvaire – Drums. Recorded at possibly the most storied of all jazz venues, this is a vibrant, effervescent album bursting with vitality and energy, scintillating with musicianship and virtuosity.

Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard is Wendel’s first live album and follows his Grammy nominated release All One. The Village Vanguard is one of the most famous of jazz venues, known for groundbreaking performances by everyone from Bill Evans to Miles Davis, Coltrane to Roland Kirk. It’s every jazz musician’s dream to play here. It offers a sense of that history, and a unique ambience to any recording, one that Understory: live at the Village Vanguard fully embraces.

Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard, sees Wendel resume the themes of tension, contrast and conflict that he worked out in his first Edition album High Heart. If there’s an identity flowing through all Ben’s albums it is this feeling of continually pushing the boundaries, not settling for the obvious or the expected. Where High Heart focussed on the tension between high art and low art, between digital and analogue, quick to produce and slow to produce, mass and individual, Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard zooms in on the tension within his own identity as an artist on the one hand and as a musician. It picks at the difference between his role as a ‘jazz’ musician and his questing for more progressive forms of expression. While this is in one sense the most ‘jazz’ album he has made (and it works brilliantly as a live jazz record, bursting with energy and ideas), Wendel elevates his sound with pedals, and his compositions extend to the outer reaches of his band’s ability, commanding a deep musicianship.

There are good reasons why Wendel has cultivated a devoted and faithful fan base. His continual questing for the new allied to his instrumental prowess and compositional talent make him a special musician who stands out even in the great company of his peers. The tensions inherent in his work and his identity lift Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard out of ordinary and into the realms of the legendary recordings made at this storied club.