Legendary jazz "vocalese" extraordinaire, Mr. Jon Hendricks, is prominently featured on Sachal Vasandani's Hi-Fly CD.
By Danny R. Johnson
WASHINGTON – If you have not notice – there has been a resurgence in jazz singing with notable contemporary male vocalists like Michael Bublé, Kurt Elling, Allan Harris, and Kevin Mahogany leading the charge; and you can add Sachal Vasandani to that short list as well. The Embassy of India in Washington, DC sponsored the young and charming pop and jazz vocalist, Vasandani, on the occasion of his sold-out and standing room only, January 16, 2012, two-set performances at DC’s famous Blues Alley Jazz Club. Mack Avenue recording artist, Sachal Vasandani, has been winning over diverse audiences the world over every since he came out in 2007 with his first CD debut, Eyes Wide Open.
Sachal went on to win Downbeat’s 2010 Rising Star poll, which was just before he wowed the world again with his second CD released in 2009 on the Mack Avenue label called, We Move. Once again, Vasandani surprised pop and jazz enthusiasts with his third CD, Hi-Fly, in which he swoons his way through 12-tracks of wonderfully produced pop, blues, and jazz standards with excellence.
- Jazz vocalist and songwriter, Sachal Vasandani, is fast becoming one of the most creative and exciting performers on the contemporary jazz scene.
Sachal’s signature achievement in the Hi-Fly CD is that he connects the meter of the jazz improvisation to the ebb and flow of modern poetry. For all his hipster irreverence, Sachal’s art in this CD is about singing homage to the classics and having one hell of a good time doing it! With the release of Hi-Fly, Sachal is in effect declaring independence from his past two CDs, not to say that they were not good products, but as Sachal puts it, “Hi-Fly finds me in an upbeat mood sharing my joy in singing this music.”
Some of the songs in this dazzling CD, like The Very Thought of You, Love Is A Losing Game and Here Come The Honey Man, will always be jazz classics. However, Sachal’s full-hearted, highly personal and occasionally idiosyncratic treatments can make you think about these standards in a different way. He borrows them, takes them for a tune-up and a spin around the block, and returns them exquisitely polished. There is a continual undercurrent of melancholy, a gentle mood of loss and time remembered.
Vasandani’s masterstroke is to perform the songs in a trio setting. The tunes take on an unburnished immediacy, an instant intimacy that taps straight into Sachal’s anomalous gift for making a lyric seem like a conversation and a melody like the true rhythm of the heart. With the Jeb Patton (piano, Rhodes, Wurlitzer), Kendrick Scott (drums), and David Wong (bass) Trio playing exceptionally suavely behind him, Sachal can even make over Sammy Cahn’s and Jimmy Van Heusen’s immortal classic, All The Way, and Heyward Du Bose and George and Ira Gershwin’s There’s A Boat That’s Leaving Soon For New York, particularly personal hits which evokes the memory of Frank Sinatra.
Working his way up to One Mint Julep and Hi-Fly, in which Sachal duets with the legendary 90-year-old blues and jazz vocalist, Mr. Jon Hendricks, Sachal takes a big leap into the bluesy tempo world of Mr. Hendricks. Mr. Hendricks is an American jazz treasure, lyricist and singer. He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists (such as the big band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie). Furthermore, Mr. Hendricks is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. For his work as a lyricist, jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the “Poet Laureate of Jazz” while Time Magazine dubbed him the “James Joyce of Jive.” Mr. Al Jarreau has called Mr. Hendricks “pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that’s ever been”.
Sachal in no way allowed the nostalgia presence of Mr. Hendricks deter him from going toe-to-toe with the master vocalese in the One Mint Julep track: Instead of trying to give Mr. Hendricks a run for his money in terms of displaying vocalese techniques, Vasandani intuitively keeps his chops feather-light. In the Hi-Fly track, we have the master vocalese, Mr. Hendricks, playfully sparing off in a superbly produced duet with Sachal. Mr. Hendricks applies his signature compositional “libretto” movement, in which he and Sachal engages in a narrative tale fit to improvised jazz solos. The singing is so precisely articulated that all the words, some of them delivered in high-speed torrents, are easily understood. Sachal Vasandani and Mr. Jon Hendricks most prodigious verbal feats displayed in this rendition of Hi-Fly will undoubtedly be labeled an immortal classic!
Vasandani’s Hi-Fly CD does not take us to better times, necessarily, and not better music, but to a time when a singer could sing from a certain elegance of the heart, which is gravely lacking in this day and age. That may be what whole generations heard in Sinatra and what so many singers learned from him. Moreover, that is what Sachal Vasandani has done here: He says thanks, brilliantly – and has fun doing it. His Way and Hi-Fly — All The Way.
Sachal Vasandani’s Official Website: http://www.sachalvasandani.com/
Danny R. Johnson is San Diego County News’ Jazz and Pop Music Critic
