Pandemic-born duo Sachal Vasandani & Romain Collin hit SF’s Black Cat

Like many musicians whose silver-lining experience of the pandemic’s first year gave them a break from the grind of gigging, Brooklyn jazz vocalist Sachal Vasandani took full advantage of the lockdown.

After reaching out to his neighbor, French-born pianist Romain Collin, they started playing together regularly, just calling songs without worrying about elaborate arrangements. Before long they brought their quiet communion into the studio, which resulted in 2021’s “Midnight Shelter,” an often ravishing collection of originals and familiar tunes by the likes of Bob Dylan, Nick Drake, and Lennon/McCartney.

Reviewing that album and its 2022 follow up, “Still Life,” which included stripped-down interpretations of Billie Eilish’s “I Love You” and Patti LaBelle’s “If Only You Knew,” I wrote for JazzTimes magazine that the duo “sustained a meditative mood so intimate it felt like listening into a murmured confession.”

Making a rare Bay Area run, Vasandani and Collin check into San Francisco’s Black Cat for a three-night engagement Jan. 19-21. While tonight’s two shows feature them in a duo setting, they’re joined on Friday and Saturday by veteran bassist Dezron Douglas, Brazilian guitar master Diego Figueiredo, and the young Portland drummer Domo Branch, “who was recommended by Taylor Eigsti,” said Vasandani, a close musical confederate of the great Menlo Park-reared pianist.

In other words, over the course of three nights, Vasandani and Collin’s music traverses much the same emotional terrain that the audience has traveled, from “the melancholy and loneliness you hear on those duo records, which were very much a diary of sorts,” Vasandani said, to the cautious optimism of the present moment, when people are itching to celebrate. “The thing for me to do now is balance everything I’m feeling, including the desire to move and dance and party.”

Adding three players into the intimate tête-à-tête expands their dynamic range and textural palette, while offering opportunities to reimagine the songs they’ve adopted. As musicians with wide-open ears, Vasandani and Collin corralled an expansive collection of tunes, and they’ve continued to add new pieces into the mix.

“We were both really open minded as to what the material could be,” Collin said. “We’re open to trying anything out. The only parameter was that Sachal had to relate to the song personally. I had a very deliberate, specific approach to my playing. It’s very bare bones, almost feeling like playing guitar more than piano. The first record the songs manifested themselves pretty quickly. We hadn’t done anything yet so we had so much to choose from.”

Since earning a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music in 2001, Collin has thrived as a player, composer and producer. He’s in the midst of writing a piece commissioned by a string quartet, and he co-leads a group with Swiss harmonica virtuoso Gregoire Maret featuring guitarist Bill Frisell, a project that’s neck deep in a tribute to the great Italian film composer Ennio Morricone. And then there’s the electronica duo with Bergur Þórisson, best known as engineer and music director for Björk.

The collaboration with Vasandani offers a musical connection that’s palpably unusual as they recorded sitting next to each other in long, uninterrupted takes.

“We’re playing extremely soft, so much so that I have to wear headphones because he’s singing so quietly,” Collin said. “No matter how pianissimo I play I need to hear some of the subtleties to comp. It’s almost like a campfire thing. He’s such a great storyteller, with a voice that’s universally relatable.”

Interested in music from a young age, Vasandani sang and dabbled in a variety of instruments, trying his hand at French horn, piano, trumpet and bass. He didn’t find himself until his late teens, when he realized that his voice was the key to his self-expression. Earning dual degrees in jazz, classical music and economics at the University of Michigan, he began earning respect as an unusually poised performer.

Named College Vocalist of the Year in 1999 by Downbeat magazine, Vasandani made the move to New York after graduation and spent his first year in the city working as an investment banker by day and looking for music clubs to sit in at night. By 2001 he was leading his own quartet and was attracting some significant ears. “Vasandani’s singing reveals emotion and intellect,” Wynton Marsalis declared. “He’s versed in the blues, standards and modern jazz.”

He’s collaborated with some of the most expressive players on the New York scene, but with Collin he’s found a late-night musical soulmate. Delving into emotional terrain that can feel unguarded, treacherous and exposed, they’ve got each other’s backs as the tide starts to turn, embracing joy and connection.

Contact Andrew Gilbert at [email protected].

SACHAL VASANDANI AND ROMAIN COLLIN

When & where: 7 p.m. & 9 p.m. Jan. 19, 7, 9 and 10:45 p.m. Jan. 20-21; Black Cat, 400 Eddy St., San Francisco; $25-$45; blackcatsf.com