Wei & Monteiro Play Jazz Classics

THE NEW JERSEY SESSIONS / Dewey Square (Charlie Parker). A Weaver of Dreams (Victor Young). I Want to Talk About You (Billy Eckstine). Nothing Ever Changes My Love for You (Marvin Fisher). When Sunny Gets Blue (Fisher-Segal). Out of Nowhere (Green-Heyman). Bags’ Groove (Milt Jackson). Life Goes On (Jeremy Monteiro). Sophisticated Lady (Ellington-Mills) / Sean Hong Wei, t-sax; Houston Person, a-sax; Alex Sipiagin, tp; Jeremy Monteiro, pno; Jay Anderson, bs; Evan Sherman, dm / JazzNote 182325

You might call Sean Hong Wei the Chinese jazz rebel. Originally from Singapore, Wei, who was born in 1999, started playing the tenor sax in his school band at age 17 and became a star with Jeremy Monteiro’s “Jazz Association Singapore” at age 22. One will note that there are two prominent guest musicians on this session. The first, who is pretty well known by most jazz fans, is alto saxist Houston Person, but not that many know that Alex Sipiagin was for many years the star trumpet soloist of the Charles Mingus Big Band financed by the late Sue Mingus. Now that Sue is gone, I’m not sure if the Mingus band is, too.

This is what you’d define as a “standard” jazz album, comprised mostly of standards in relatively simple arrangements, but at least what we have here are real compositions and not the usual sequence of bitonal musical gestures that pass for “themes” in much of today’s jazz.

Wei’s style harks back to that thrilling time in the late 1940s when several swing stars began branching out into bebop, among them Charlie Ventura whose sound his most closely resembles. It’s a rich tenor sound with a bit of “grit” in it, much like Ventura, who started with Gene Krupa’s orchestra but in 1949 started his short-lived but extremely popular “Bop for the People” band.

Sipiagin’s smooth but interesting trumpet style adds quite a bit to the proceedings, and long-time veteran bassist Jay Anderson, now 69, still has the chops to keep him busy as one of the most-desired first call musicians on the West Coast. There aren’t a lot of surprises in the improvising of either Wei or Monteiro, but neither do they just play standard licks. It’s just that, as musicians working within the jazz mainstream, their style is retro without sounding imitative or stale. Had this recording been made in the mid-1950s instead of today, it would surely be hailed as one of the most interesting and fun jazz discs of the year. I’m trying to remember the name of that young tenor saxist who made such a splash back in the 1980s—Scott Hamilton, I think?—who played so very well but was out of step with the fusion movement which dominated jazz at the time. Wei plays like that. The difference between the two is that although this is a studio group, they play with a unity and joie-de-vivre that makes them sound as if they’ve been a working band for years.

Wei is so good that he can even make ballads sound interesting: listen to his exquisite solo on I Want to Talk About You, where he tosses in a few Charlie Parker licks as well as a few that reminded me of young Coltrane. He can also vary his tone extremely well, in fact even better than Ventura, who generally had a “thicker” sound, which gives his playing color and variety. Although he is obviously surrounded by first-rate jazz talent, most of the time they just take spot solos, leaving the floor to Wei to show off what he can do, but listen to Monteiro’s wildly creative solo on Nothing Ever Changes My Love for You. He, too, is a major improvising talent who is probably taken for granted in the jazz world because he plays what is now a retro style.

There were several ballad songs from Ye Olde Days that I never did like, and When Sunny Gets Blue is one of them (Send in the Clowns is another). The changes just aren’t very interesting and the melody is pretty much nothing, yet in a way this was probably the biggest test-piece for Wei because of those shortcomings, and he almost makes it palatable once he gets to his improvised solo. But surprise! Wei is followed by Houston Person on alto, and to be honest, Person’s improvisation is even a shade better, but that’s only to be expected…he’s a seasoned pro with decades of experience. The fact that Wei could at least hold his own says a lot for him. This track also includes what I felt was Anderson’s most imaginative solo on the album, which also helped to elevate this clunker of a tune into the realm of art.

Johnny Green’s classic, Out of Nowhere, is turned into a bossa nova. Now, THIS is a song that will live forever because the changes are GREAT. In my view, Green is one of the most underrated songwriters in jazz history despite the fact that this tune, I Cover the Waterfront, and a couple of others have survived for nearly a century. One of the tings I liked most about Wei’s playing is its serpentine qualities: he sort of “twists” notes and phrases into shapes as well as being able to create entirely new structures over the changes of any song. Yet to be honest, he really only seems to get into this tune near the end of the track. I don’t know why.

It’s interesting to hear Wei play Bags’ Groove (in the second chorus, as a duet in thirds with Person), a tune that has been so long associated with the vibes and is also an example of what you might call “soul jazz.” Not only does he have no problem with this style, but due to his ability to twist notes and phrases as well as color them, he actually revels in it. Even Person, who follows Wei, cannot do better although he does do as well. Here, too, Monteiro finally reappears on piano, playing an outstanding solo. Wei is lucky to have such an immensely talented mentor.

The one original tune on this CD is Monteiro’s Life Goes On, which is a ballad. It’s a nice piece, and here Wei does his best Ben Webster impersonation. Sipiagin also plays on this one, but why not one of the other uptempo tunes? (My way of saying that I don’t much like ballads.) We end with Sophisticated Lady, also a ballad but a more interesting one; after all, it’s an Ellington piece. Once again, Wei suggests Webster, and appropriately so, yet with some slightly boppish twists.

All in all, a very nice album and a good introduction to Wei’s playing, I hope he can develop into an even more adventurous improviser as he gets older. Joey Alexander went from interesting to middle-of-the-road. Not all youthful prodigies get better with age.

—© 2024 Lynn René Bayley

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