The Songbook Project: An Evening Of Standards w/ Andrew Walesch & Max Wellman

Thu, Apr 02

The Songbook Project: An Evening Of Standards w/ Andrew Walesch & Max Wellman Cover

Join Max Wellman & Andrew Walesch for a night full of standards featuring a rotating cast of musicians & other singers. --- Vocalist Max Wellman is enticing music lovers throughout the region. With a sound evoking the likes of Sinatra and Connick, Wellman’s recordings & performances promise that the Great American Songbook is alive & well for a new generation of listeners. ​Wellman co-founded Noce, a state-of-the-art jazz club in the Western Gateway neighborhood of downtown Des Moines. Additionally, Wellman has appeared at some of the great clubs throughout the country, from Dizzy's Club Coca Cola at Lincoln Center to Andy's Jazz Club in Chicago to Dazzle in Denver & many in between. --- Like a good many before him, singer and pianist Andrew Walesch somehow manages to encapsulate the sophistication of a cosmopolite and the self-effacing charm of a country boy. Whether composing and arranging or appearing in settings ranging from solo artist to big band, this Minnesota native, who crisscrosses the country playing dates big and small, is as respectful of his predecessors as he is ready to take a leap into the unknown and chart a new course. In his monthly, sold-out shows with his 10-piece band, Walesch is a traditionalist and an iconoclast rolled into one. His audiences include jazz enthusiasts of a certain age, as well as a younger crowd compelled by his down-home insouciance, and the knowing irreverence of a tried-and-true American nightclub entertainer. “Although they are my idols, I don’t attempt to imitate the great pop and jazz artists of the 50’s and 60’s,” says the singer and pianist, “but I go for broke when we do our shows -- vocally and musically — which is what they all did best and why they were in a class of their own." His vocal and piano chops, along with his keen sensibility to find and interpret a great lyric, have led to some great opportunities for Walesch, including an appearance on the nationally syndicated NPR broadcast Mountain Stage and more recently, an invitation to perform at the 33rd Annual Cabaret Convention at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. In 2023, Andrew accepted the position of artistic director of the MIM Music Theater in Phoenix, Arizona where he now resides.