Review: Bennie Wallace — French Postcard

Bennie Wallace
French Postcard
Backcountry Jazz Records
Street: 01.01.2026
Bennie Wallace = Sonny Rollins + Coleman Hawkins 

Authentic jazz is good, and saxophonist Bennie Wallace is authentic in the way he plays jazz on his newest album, French Postcard.

To me — an individual who’s not qualified to be writing about jazz (I jest; I am a jazz musician) — “authentic jazz” is jazz created with love, passion, hard work and respect for the music. Anecdotally, I’ve found that anyone who creates more walls than I just did around what should be considered “authentic” jazz and what should not be considered “authentic jazz” is typically coming from a place of gatekeeping and elitism, oftentimes using the guise of “keeping the history and tradition alive” as a way to promote their pretentiousness.

Wynton Marsalis is an overly talked-about trumpeter who just so happens to be the artistic director for Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, an organization that reaches approximately three million people through concerts every year. He is one of those individuals who feels particularly passionate about using big words to categorize certain sound waves into groups and other, less-good or perhaps less-authentic, sound waves into other groups. He would say “authentic jazz” is created strictly using “the tradition,” and any sound wave or idea that strays too far from said tradition should be exiled from being able to use the title of “authentic jazz.”

Funnily enough, even though Mr. Marsalis and I have differing opinions on what constitutes sound waves as being authentic, I believe we would both agree that French Postcard is a record fundamentally rooted in the jazz tradition and, to me, clearly made with passion, love and respect for the music.

Wallace has been around for a long time and has played with jazz giants like Barry Harris, Buddy Rich, and Dannie Richmond. His album French Postcard was released in 2026 and was recorded live to two-track analog tape at Sear Sound, the oldest recording studio in New York City.

Immediately after hearing the first notes come out of his horn (a vintage Selmer Mark VI for the saxophone nerds out there), I knew Mr. Wallace was an old cat. How? Saxophone tone tends to change for most people as they get older. Listen to alto saxophonist Lee Konitz’s first album, Subconscious-Lee, recorded in 1950, versus his last album, Old Songs New, recorded in 2017. Old saxophone players have a sound that is so uniquely tied to being old, and Mr. Wallace has it in all of its glory. (Turns out the man is turning 80 years old this November!)

Lots of jazz saxophone players seem to say very little with their tone, instead choosing to emphasize how many notes they can play in at least five seconds, turning their “music” into a — pardon my French — penis-measuring competition. However, Mr. Wallace is anything but that. His style is clearly inspired by straight-ahead players like Coleman Hawkins, yet he has a very creative and fun way of deconstructing ideas that reminds me of the great Sonny Rollins (RIP).

The first tune on the album, “Joshua Fit The Battle of Jericho,” is one of my favorites because it’s chordless — no guitar or piano playing — and anytime I hear chordless saxophone, my brain melts. In addition, the tune is rhythmically energetic and easy to groove to.

The next track, “Srubie,” brings the rest of the band in with a straight-ahead blues. Mr. Wallace doesn’t stray much from the changes. However, guitarist Anthony Wilson uses a very different sense of time when compared with the looseness of Wallace. And pianist Donald Vega goes into what I’ll call “blues mode” on his solo, which is awesome.

“How Insensitive” by Antônio Carlos Jobim is one of my favorite bossa nova jazz standards. It was the first jazz standard I learned the lyrics to many years ago, and I still sing it on gigs I have today. I mean, look at these lyrics: “How insensitive I must have been when you told me that you loved me.”

Horrifying. Absolutely horrifying.

The band plays a very straightforward arrangement of the tune, with Mr. Wallace’s fast sax habits sparkling through here and there. The vamp at the end is fun, but it’s not enough to make me think this version is particularly unique from the original arrangement in a way that is all that interesting. However, I say this knowing that not everything needs to be reinventing the wheel, especially when the wheel has been working for decades and is loved by many.

“Tennessee Waltz” is a great song that the band plays beautifully. “Handcuffs” is fun because the head (melody) is so disjointed. Think of the mannerisms of Thelonious Monk — the tune follows a standard blues form that Mr. Wilson seems to enjoy practicing triad pairs over.

Then there’s “’Round Midnight” — one of the greatest jazz ballads out there, and I love the choice to end the album with it. The combination of vibes, tenor saxophone and bass is immaculate and creates a very pleasant timbre. (Timbre is pronounced TAM-ber or TAM-bruh. Don’t forget.)

Overall, as a jazz fan and human being who plays the saxophone every day, I appreciate the fact that this album exists and that Mr. Wallace exists, but I don’t think the album has anything particularly strong going for it besides the stuff within the album. What I mean by that is that the album is what it is, and it is absolutely nothing else.

Old cats like Mr. Wallace, who have recorded with Blue Note and played with jazz legends, don’t need to be doing anything different. The people who will like this album will like this album, and the people who won’t like this album — or who exclaim to the universe that they don’t like jazz — will not like this album, not because of anything in the album. They just don’t like jazz.

The people who will like the album will like it not because it does anything particularly innovative, but because they like jazz as a whole, and they can hear the authenticity in Mr. Wallace and his band. —Teddy P

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