BEN WENDEL

Multi GRAMMY® nominated, Brooklyn-based saxophonist Ben Wendel was born in Vancouver, Canada and grew up in Santa Monica, California. His band in high school, a quintet called Tres Gatos, included Terrace Martin (the saxophonist and producer who, as part of the Brainfeeder collective, has worked with artists such as Kendrick Lamar and whose recent effort Grey Area involves Wendel) and Alfred Darlington (the electronic artist and producer known as Daedelus).

Both remain close associates, part of Wendel’s impressively diverse circle. Throughout his career, the saxophonist has pursued a genre-neutral Yes-To-All approach to music. He’s recorded or performed with legendary hitmakers (Prince, Snoop Dogg) and jazz firebrands (Terence Blachard, Bill Frisell, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Tigran Hamasyan, Aaron Parks, Ignacio Berroa, Taylor Eigsti, Linda May Han Oh, Antonio Sanchez, Gerald Clayton) and people whose work resists classification entirely (Louis Cole, Daedelus, Julia Holter, Moonchild, José James).

As a composer, he has received an ASCAP Jazz Composer Award, the 2008, 2011 and 2017 Chamber Music America “New Works Grant” and was awarded the Victor Lynch-Staunton award by the Canada Council For The Arts. He also co-wrote the score for John Krasinski's adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men." He has logged six separate weeks as the headliner at the Village Vanguard. Wendel is aware that this diverse range of activity makes him hard to pin down – a challenge that will only increase with the sweeping invention of Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard

Ben was honoured to work with conductor Kent Nagano in producing a series of concerts for the Festspiel Plus in Munich, Germany. From 2008 to 2015, he produced a multi-genre performance series at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. During that time, he was appointed the head of their Jazz and Blues initiative, which included producing and expanding performance opportunities for these genres in Los Angeles. As part of this appointment, Ben helped to create an artistic council which included such luminaries as Quincy Jones, Herb Alpert and Luciana Souza. Ben’s producer work includes the GRAMMY® nominated album "Life Forum" for pianist Gerald Clayton on Concord Records.

Ben has recorded for Edition Records, Sunnyside Records, Motéma Music, Concord Records and Brainfeeder, with six solo albums under his belt, Simple Song (2009), Frame (2012), What We Bring (2016) The Seasons (2018), High Heart (2020), All One (2023) a duo project with French-American pianist Dan Tepfer entitled Small Constructions (2013) and multiple Kneebody albums. His critically acclaimed music video project The Seasons, inspired by Tchaikovsky’s works of the same name, was released throughout 2015 and included guests such as Joshua Redman, Jeff Ballard, Mark Turner, Julian Lage, Ambrose Akinmusire and more. It was listed as one of the best releases of 2015 by the NY Times.

Ben is a former teacher of jazz studies at USC in Los Angeles and the New School in NYC. Educational outreach has been a constant in his career with over 350 masterclasses at various colleges, universities, high schools and also previous work with the LA Philharmonic Artist Program.