Last Monday, I went to hear Sachal Vasandani croon jazz at a hole-in-the-wall, basement club in Manhattan. He’s friends with my cousin the conductor. The bar was packed with University of Michigan music alumni, a more raucous crowd than the usual jazz audience. Vasandani and his band had the early show, the 7pm show before the headliner comes on.

Because of the friend connection, I wasn’t expecting more than a pleasant evening out. And though I love jazz classics, I’m not fan enough to dig the dissonance of an improv jam session. Vasandani emerged from the gloom of rear stage. He was tall and floppy-haired and stood a bit stiffly, like a pre-makeover John Mayer. He wore a blazer, but he wasn’t as natty as chart-topping young fogies like Harry Connick Jr. and swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. We plunged into our sidecars and lemon drops and waited for the show to begin.

When Vasandani opened his mouth, we utterly forgot about the drinks. The first time you hear a magnetic singer pull from his bag of vocal tricks, it’s like falling in love. Those who hadn’t heard him before were shocked. I wore a silly, involuntary grin and told my cousin, ‘He’s really good!’ He smiled smugly. Listen to Vasandani singing ‘Embraceable You’ (thanks, Ankush; warning: it’s a crappy, mono WAV clip that doesn’t do him justice).

After a few standards, Vasandani cut loose with a couple of original compositions by the band and one by a friend. His voice seems to emerge via ventriloquism; it’s bigger than his body can sustain and more classic than his look. He’s like Charlotte Church in terms of the surprise factor. He has a very mainstream, full new jazz sound; he’s won a slew of awards, and the NY Sun has compared his sound to Connick Jr.:

Sachal Vasandani was a total surprise: He looks like the leading man in a Bollywood musical but is a very traditional jazz crooner…

Like most successful revolutions, jazz has ossified into an institution over time. So if I had a complaint with Vasandani’s style, it would be this: for better and for worse, his sound is pretty close to mass-selling singers I’ve heard before. It means he instantly dispels the authenticity question, which a not-black, not-white jazz singer grapples with far more intimately than a desi instrumentalist. But it also means he doesn’t sound novel to these untrained ears. It shows when he scats, he’s more comfortable coloring within the lines, or perhaps I’ve been blessed with hearing some remarkably fluid female jazz singers. Don’t let that dissuade you from seeing him, though: he sings beautifully.

Sean Jones of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra played guest trumpet. Vasandani’s band features Jeb Patton on piano, David Wong on bass and Quincy Davis on drums. They all look like they’re in their 20s. They all wear the earnest, high-class music nerd look that somehow manages to be as cool as the unshaven, artfully mussed hordes of Stereogum and Music for Robots. Like jazz itself, it’s competence over style alone.

Official site here. Previous posts: 1, 2.

The Sachal Vasandani band, every second Monday, Zinc Bar (90 W. Houston / LaGuardia Pl.), Manhattan; 7:30-8:45pm, $5