The new season of the Hot Jazz series at the Tel Aviv Art Museum has a larger (eight concerts) and more ambitious and more promising program this year. If we are to judge after the first concert last night, it has good chances to be a season to remember.
(video source erwigfilms)
Warren Vache was born in 1951 in New Jersey, and he had the chance to play as a young instrumentalist with Benny Goodman. He plays trumpet and horn, and sometimes mixes voice pieces in his concerts, although last night in Tel Aviv he chose to play the trumpet and in only one piece (a composition of his own in the style of humorist blues) he sang vocals. He played in different bands of his own or as a member of the group, as varied as big-bands and small ensembles, polka orchestras or Dixieland bands. He recorded for a while at the legendary Concord label.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpK2LCO0poA
Vache appeared in concerts in big jazz festivals all over the world. Some of the clips that I found on youTube were filmed at such events – for instance at the Toronto festival in 1977 and at the Bern festival in 2001.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcXF331Zfwg
The program was composed of many jazz anthems which Vache takes and freely translates them in dixieland style. Some other came from unexpected sources, like ‘Night in Moscow’ – a tune too well known to Russian and East European audiences. While creating the framework for each of the songs in the show, Vache does not impose his presence, his instrumental parts are not longer then those of the other instrumentalists, and he gives them the opportunity and leaves them the time to express themselves with their own vision of the tunes. More than that, one of the things Vache did in the concert last night was leaving the scene (properly) and letting the other run the show for one song each – saxophonist Morton Kam, pianist Nitai Hershkovits and trombonist Jonathan Wolczuck received such opportunities last night. Kam and Wolczuk used them beautifully, Hershkovits disappointed me last night.
(video source libbyvideo)
Warren Vache’s Web site is http://www.warrenvache.com/