The American music scene is littered with one-hit wonders, acts that briefly catapulted to the top of the charts and then plunged back into oblivion. The jazz vocal ensemble säje put a very different spin on the renown-bounding phenomenon, scoring a 2020 Grammy Award-nomination with the quartet’s first (and, at that time, only) track, a sumptuously lapidary original called “Desert Song.”
The tune emerged out of a creatively febrile 2019 weekend session in Palm Springs that was intended as a trial run to see whether it made sense for the four women to sing, compose and arrange together. Instead of following the game plan, spending their time writing and workshopping material, Los Angeles-based Sara Gazarek and Erin Bentlage and Seattle-situated Johnaye Kendrick and Amanda Taylor ended up talking, sharing and bonding over their overlapping and divergent creative practices.
Though the women had various ties to each other, it wasn’t a given that some kind of collaboration would emerge. As a young singer, Kendrick had closely followed the path of Gazarek, a Seattle native who’s earned two Grammy nominations as a solo jazz artist.
“Sara was one of the main voices I was listening to in high school,” Kendrick said. “And I was a big fan of Erin’s writing for years, but I went into the weekend pretty skeptical. I never saw myself in a vocal group. But it felt so right, like a breath of fresh air. I didn’t know I needed it until I was there.”
The other women felt much the same, and as the hang was coming to an end they realized they didn’t want to come away without any new music. A final burst of singing together resulted in “Desert Song,” a piece for which all four women are credited as composers and arrangers. The weekend not only planted a pre-pandemic seed, it laid the groundwork for a group that is redefining the possibilities of ensemble jazz vocals.
With the release last month of an eponymous debut album, säje (rhymes with beige) shows that the group has no intention of being remembered as a one-hit wonder. Instead säje is making its mark by conjuring wondrous soundscapes, whether exploring harmonically luxuriant originals, boldly reimagined jazz standards, or inventive interpretations of contemporary tunes by the likes of Björk, The Bad Plus bassist Reid Anderson or singer/songwriter YEBBA.
In the wake of the album’s release, the group has embarked on its first extended tour, which includes performances at Santa Cruz’s Kuumbwa Jazz Center Oct. 16, Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage Oct. 18, and Pleasanton’s Firehouse Art Theatre Oct. 19. They’ll be joined by drummer Quincy Davis and Oakland reared bassist Amina Scott, “who played with us at our debut performance in 2020 at Jazz Education Network conference,” Gazarek said.
In many ways the JEN conference provided the push that propelled säje into flight. Invited to perform at the January 2020 event in New Orleans, the women quickly set about creating an entire set of new material. Even with “Desert Song,” Gazarek wasn’t sure she was game for devoting time to a vocal ensemble after two decades building her reputation as a solo artist.
“Honestly, I never liked vocal jazz choirs, and I never had high level experience singing in one in college,” she said. “More often than not they’re led by choral educators, not jazz educators. But in Erin Bentlage and Amanda Taylor I heard writing that felt truly reflective of what’s happening in the moment, music that’s progressive and curious and sacred. That’s what made it feel interesting and doable.”
For the album, säje collaborated with fellow vocal explorers such as Jacob Collier and Michael Mayo and heavyweight improvisers such as Berkeley trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, drummer and NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington, and pianists Dawn Clement and Gerald Clayton. For the Bay Area dates, pianist/accordionist Gary Versace, a New York veteran who holds down the piano chair in the Maria Schneider Orchestra, rounds out the rhythm section.
Capitalizing on their disparate sounds and experiences, the four women have found that säje is far more than the sum of its members. “We’ve all had such different experiences, and it’s not always clear where those experiences will lead,” Taylor said. “Following our own individual paths has brought us into this space, and it’s like all this time we’ve been building to this specific thing. It’s like I’ve been training my whole life for this, and säje is an arrival at home.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
When & where: 7 p.m. Oct. 16 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa Cruz; $21-$42; www.kuumbwajazz.org; 8 p.m. Oct. 18 at Freight & Salvage, Berkeley; $24-$29; thefreight.org; 7:30 p.m. Oct. 19 at Firehouse Arts Center, Pleasanton; $35-$75; www.firehousearts.org
