Doug Wamble
‘Blues in the Present Tense’ (Halcyonic Records)

Let’s call this a “thought experiment” — you know, like the one about the tree falling in the forest. Is Doug Wamble a blues player with an admirable propensity for contemporary jazz surroundings, or is he a jazz musician who goes above and beyond the call of duty in giving attention to the blues?  

The guitarist, singer, and songwriter has a new album, and he was just in New York for the Winter Jazz Festival and to do an early evening duo set with Nicole Zuraitis, the pianist, singer, and composer, at Birdland. “Blues in the Present Tense” is his first release since 2015, but he hasn’t been idle; among other things, Mr. Wamble, now 50, was a prominent soloist on “The Ever Fonky Lowdown,” an ambitious jazz suite and theater work by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, just before the pandemic. 

His status as a member of the extended Marsalis musical family also is certified by the presence on his CD of a saxophonist credited as “Prometheus Jenkins,” whom, a little bird known as the internet told me, is secret code for Branford Marsalis.

“Blues in the Present Tense,” which features bassist Eric Revis and drummer Jeff Tain Watts, is essential Doug Wamble music in that it sounds futuristic and fundamental at the same time — at once the most basic country blues and the furthest out avant garde jazz that there is.  The album consists of eight originals by Mr. Wamble, starting with “Home Sick,” which he uses to mean “sick of my home,” and building to the title song.  

Some of the songs, like “MAGA Brain,” are angry and protest-y. “If I’m Evil,” conversely, is a slow, New Orleans-style funeral dirge, ending with the words, “Just like Jesus / I’m white as the snow, so if I’m evil / Don’t let me know.” “Along the Way” is at once romantic and philosophical, a prayer and a life lesson — somehow I thought of “You Gotta Move” by Mississippi Fred McDowell. This track and others are further enlivened by a lusty soprano saxophone solo by “Mr. Jenkins,” if that is indeed his name.

I was expecting some of Mr. Wamble’s trademark outer space blues at Birdland, but fate had other plans. Ms. Zuraitis began her early set — after first cracking a few comments about what sort of an audience likes to listen to jazz at 5:30 p.m. on a Tuesday — with a few standards delivered as voice and guitar duets with Mr. Wamble: from “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” directly into “Like Someone In Love” and then “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” 

Mr. Wamble also sang one solo standard in his distinctive, Southern baritone, “Candy,” a 1944 hit favored in both jazz and R&B circles. When addressing the traditional songbook, Mr. Wamble recalls the legendary Lonnie Johnson, an innovative bluesman who was also at home singing show tunes.

Clad in a sparkly gold jacket that prompted me to order Champagne, Ms. Zuratis then took her place at the piano, where she delivered a few originals and, aided by Mr. Wamble’s ace plucking and picking, some unexpected jazzy treatments of 1960s pop songs. These were “Ode to Billie Joe” and Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” both lightly reharmonized, and the latter with a well-choreographed audience participation bit centered on the famous “Doo do doo do doo do do doo…” section.  

Ms. Zuraitis’s big crowd-pleasing original is one that, she tells us, won a competition to come up with a song about coffee, and was partly inspired by her husband, a former barista. Titled “I Like You a Latte,” it’s filled to the brim with caffeinated puns, like “cappuccinos are just a perk,” and inspired rhymes, like “Kombucha” with “smooch ya.” Here’s hoping Ms. Zuraitis and her percolated partner never find the grounds for divorce.

The set reached a high point when Ms. Zuraitis and Mr. Wamble were joined by yet a third singing instrumentalist, the powerhouse trumpeter Jumaane Smith — more customarily on the road with Michael Buble but also in town for WJF.  The trio rendered spontaneous arrangements of “God Bless the Child” and “Cheek to Cheek.” Throughout the politically charged “Blues in the Present Tense,” Mr. Wamble is highly serious, but here, in this informal ensemble, he gave vent to his playful side.  

Ms. Zuratis performed “If Ever I Would Leave You” (from “Camelot”) as an unaccompanied vocal-piano number, and climaxed the show with “How Blue Can You Get?” It’s a rousing and funny blues — especially in the bridge — associated with B.B. King, who learned it from Louis Jordan, who got it from the composer, Leonard Feather, the British songwriter-producer-critic.

Ms. Zuraitis and Mr. Wamble are a prodigious pairing, especially when joined by Mr. Smith. All three singer-players have a unique ability to adapt to any surroundings, from folk, rock, and blues to the hardest of hardcore modern jazz. In the case of Doug Wamble, I’m never quite sure whether to describe him as a staunch traditionalist or a resolute postmodernist, and that’s a good thing.