Saxophonist Ben Wendel has been experimenting with form and technology throughout most of his career. He is an ambitious composer and fluid improviser, so that makes him a “jazz” musician by default. Whether on his own or as a founding member of the band Kneebody, he has played with groove-oriented rhythms, electronics, and unusual instrumentation, as if jazz tradition were secondary to creativity. His new album, BaRcoDe, uniquely does exactly that.
Recorded after this band had a pair of residencies at New York City’s Jazz Gallery, BaRcoDe brings Wendel together with four innovative vibraphonists/percussionists: Patricia Brennan, Simon Moullier, Joel Ross, and Juan Diego Villalobos. That’s the band: tenor saxophone…