Ben Wendel: BaRcoDe
Edition Records

Rivaling the incredible work tenor saxophonist Ben Wendel has done with Kneebody are the projects he's produced as a solo artist, a prime and timely example this audacious debut from his nascent ensemble BaRcoDe. I'm guessing it's the first time a saxophonist has recruited four vibraphonists to be group members, but the six performances make the move seem a stroke of genius—and certainly it doesn't hurt that the four involved are Joel Ross, Simon Moullier, Patricia Brennan, and Juan Diego Villalobos. Lest one think the music's reducible to a two-instruments affair, four of the five expand on their instruments' sound-generating potential with EFX (Ross the outlier) and three supplement vibraphone with marimba (Ross), chromatic balafon (Moullier), mallet station, and percussion (Villalobos). Stated otherwise, the quintet's sound is multi-dimensional.

Recorded at The Bunker Studios in Brooklyn in January 2025, BaRcoDe is a bold switch-up from Wendel's All One, which saw him assembling layers of saxophone and bassoon and featuring a different guest soloist on each track. And that BaRcoDe is exciting music is no surprise, considering the personnel involved. Ross is a key figure on the NYC jazz scene, but major players too are Moullier, Brennan, and the Venezuelan-born Villalobos, all adventurous in the way they've revitalized the jazz vibraphone tradition by threading into their music world genres and electronics.

Steve Reich would seem to be a natural touchstone for a line-up of this type, given his early-career landmark Drumming and other percussion-related works. It's So Percussion, however, that Wendel cites as a key inspiration as the equally forward-thinking outfit is one he fraternized with during his undergraduate years at the Eastman School of Music. Wendel himself acknowledges that the opening “Clouds” is an homage of sorts to percussion quartet-based minimalism in featuring two vibraphonists hocketing. With that dizzying ground in place, the others enter with their own spiraling contributions, the saxophonist delivering one virtuosic volley after another and the percussionists feverish in their laser-focused patterning. On an album packed with ear candy, the contrasts in timbre between the different mallet instruments and the percussive elements make for an always arresting result.

After that head-spinning intro, the pace slows ever so slightly for “Mimo,” which Wendel wrote in tribute to his Czech-born wife. With him peppering the track with exuberant flourishes and strutting jazz chops, the track swings infectiously when the others power the pulse with chromatic balafon, vibraphone, and percussion. Don't miss either the mallet showdown that lifts the performance to an even funkier realm. Previously heard on Kneebody's 2025 album Reach, “Repeat After Me” makes a fluid transition into the BaRcoDe context. The sultry groove that instates itself a minute into the piece is an ear-tickler for sure, but so too are the funky solo tradeoffs between vibraphone, marimba, and sax. That “Birds Ascend” drew for inspiration from British pianist Kit Downes, Scottish contemporary fiddle player, and composer Aidan O'Rourke makes sense when the piece roars through its folk dance-styled changes with breathless abandon.

The album's sole non-original is a regal cover of Antônio Carlos Jobim's “Olha Maria,” an all-time favourite of Wendel's that lends itself smoothly to this quintet treatment. At ten minutes-plus, the performance grants the five ample time to ease into the material and give heartfelt voice to its dreamy themes and intoxicating mood. As impressive as Wendel is when executing at light-speed, his tenor's no less riveting when he slows down and gives free rein to emotional expression (the reverb-heavy production treatment is at times a distraction, though). Personal history entered into the writing of the closing “Lonely One,” what with Wendel being a child of divorce who spent a lot of time alone—though not entirely unhappily. His whistling infuses the piece with a wistful quality that's offset by the bright shimmer of the vibraphone. It's not long, however, until his agile, full-throated tenor takes over and he waxes nostalgically using other means.

May 2026