Search - Ben Wendel :: Simple Song

Eric Dolphy, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef, and Bennie Maupin; they all are first-rate jazz musicians. But they are something else: they are multi-instrumentalists masters of various woodwinds, who can project their voices in a myriad of soulful and swinging sonic contexts.

The Vancouver-born, Los Angeles-based saxophonist/bassoonist and educator Ben Wendel is the rightful heir to that rare tradition of musical multitasking. And nothing shows that better than his debut Sunnyside CD, Simple Song. For Wendel, an Adjunct Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of California, and a veteran sideman with a wide range of artists from Cuban drummer Ignacio Berroa to hip hop legend Snoop Dog. This delightful disc showcases his adventures in rhythm and tune.

Anchored by drummer Nate Wood, bassist Darek Oles Oleszkiewicz, keyboardists Taylor Eigsti, (Thelonious Monk Piano Competition winner), Tigran Hamasyan, and Adam Benjamin, and guitarist Larry Koonse, Wendel s lithe and lyrical sax lines, melodica musings and bassoon virtuosity are applied with breathtaking depth and diversity on the CD s eleven tracks. The lead-off track, Breath, opens with some maze-like counterpoint that neither betrays Bach for up tempo swing, while the title composition is delivered in a cool and compelling medium tempo, as is the ebullient number, Ralph. Trust Fall, No Thank You Mr. West, and John Coltrane s Lonnie s Lament, are sprinkled with a touch of the Latin tinge. Wendel effortlessly goes into another mood with the hip-notic Maupin, a heartfelt tribute to the woodwind colossus, the beautifully classical-embered composition Chorale, and an incredible World Saxophone Quartet-style reading of Billy Strayhorn s classic, A Flower is a Lovesome Thing. The CD closes with She Never Had, lyrically laced with Wendel s poignant and powerful melodica, which echoes Astor Piazzolla s bandoneon.

Wendel s ease with a host of instruments, rhythms and musical genres is the result of his broad education and experience. A graduate of the Eastman School in Rochester, New York, Wendel co-founded the genre-bending group, Kneebody, and worked in a number of diverse musical contexts. His recordings as a sideman include the electronica ensemble Daedelus (Invention, Love to Make Music To, 2002, 2008), Jason Mraz (Waiting for My Rocket to Come, 2002), Go: Organic Orchestra (Go: Organic Orchestra, Web of Light, 2003), The Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra (Unfinished Symphony, 2004), Kneebody (Kneebody, 2005), Todd Sickafoose (Blood Orange, 2006) Taylor Eigsti (Lucky to be Me, 2006; Let it Come to You, 2008) and Otamaro Ruiz (Sojourn, 2008). Wendel received an ASCAP Jazz Composer Award, scored a number of films, was awarded a New Works Grant from Chamber Music America in 2007, and he currently produces a performing arts series at the Edye in Santa Monica, CA.

As his astonishing resume and CD illustrate Ben Wendel s Simple Song is anything but!