A hip jazz concert in a synagogue? Why not, for gosh sakes? As jazz shows go, this was one of the hippest, featuring a one-time-only assemblage of top-drawer players assembled for a good cause.

Greg Wall wails. Baum is on left, Anderson behind Wall, and Nussbaum at the rear. Absent from the photo: pianist Brian Marsella. (Jim Motavalli photo)

Congregation B’Nai Israel in Bridgeport is the home synagogue for Connecticut native, flautist and composer/arranger Jamie Baum. Playing tenor and soprano saxophone was Rabbi Greg Wall, who knows Baum from the New England Conservatory of Music (where they studied under the late pianist Jaki Byard).

Jazz is a shared language, so adding some seasoned players to the evening’s fare ensured a spicy meal. On bass was Jay Anderson, the veteran of something like 400 recordings (Michael Brecker to Frank Zappa), and a frequent collaborator with the ace drummer, Adam Nussbaum, a Norwalk native. The pianist, Brian Marsella, is an eclectic young player whose debut album is called The Clocks Have Gone Mad.

I didn’t ask them if they rehearsed, but they’re all so busy that if they did, it was only once. But this is jazz, and the evening—bringing out a full crowd during Hanukah—came off flawlessly. And for a good cause, too.: the synagogue’s music program, and the Irving Moorin Memorial Scholarship Fund. Launched in 1971, the fund “grants a yearly award to a high school student from one of the schools in the Greater Bridgeport area who, but for the award, might not be able to attend college.”

Michael Moorin described the fund started in his father’s memory and even sat in on timbales. That particular piece was of Jewish liturgical origins, I gathered, but was done up in Latin jazz style. Playing congas was Andres Forero, whose day job is as a drummer for the hit play Hamilton.

Actually calling Hamilton a “hit” is a little like saying “Like a Rolling Stone” is a pretty nice song. It’s a mega-smash, and for that reason—and for the sake of the scholarship—Forero was able to raise an additional $4,000 for four show tickets (with backstage benefits).

Jazz doesn’t inspire frenzied ticket bidding, but it’s music for the ages. Jaki Byard’s “Strolling Along” was a good opener. Baum has kept up her devotion to the compositional side of Professor Byard with her Yard Byard project. Nate Chinen wrote in the Times of that aggregation, “The music was all Byard’s, played lovingly and a bit loosely…Most of the songs in the first set were fine examples of standard form gone just slightly haywire. The absence of a pianist in the group is good strategy…”

Baum’s Yard Byard carries on the Jaki Byard experience.

Wall is a fiery player with a big sound who reminds me of the young firebrands who upended this music in the 1960s—a touch of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, a sprinkle of Pharoah Sanders, a dash of Coltrane, but all flavoring his own thing. On records, he spices that thing up with electronics, but has been more straight-ahead in previous live performances I’ve caught.

The mainstream jazz influences mix with Jewish devotional elements in Wall’s playing. Skewed one way, that results in klezmer, but Wall is more in the tradition of one of my favorite musicians—clarinet player Anat Cohen.  In 2002, Wall released From the Belly of Abraham, with Hasidic New Wave and Senegalese master drummers Yakar Rhythms. It was named one of the 10 best CDs that year by Jazz Times magazine. A recent world music project is the pan-cultural Unity Orchestra.

Honoring the fathers, Wall brought out one of Kirk’s most memorable compositions, “Bright Moments,” the highlight of a 1973 double live album.  I used to sign off my letters, “Bright Moments.” Here are some of Rahsaan’s personal bright moments:

“Bright Moments is like . . . eating your last pork chop in London, England, because you ain’t gonna get no more . . . cooked from home. Bright Moments is like being with your favorite love and you’re sharing the same ice cream dish. And you get mad when she gets the last drop. And you have to take her in your arms and get it the other way.”

My favorite:  “Bright Moments is like hearing some music that ain’t nobody else heard.” That’s definitely a Bright Moment for me too.

I enjoyed a suite of songs about light, appropriate to Hanukah—represented by a lighted menorah on stage. Baum (a Guggenheim winner and McDowell Colony denizen) got a spotlight on Hubert Laws’ “Shades of Light.” She’s a cooler, more cerebral player than Wall, and always has one ear out for how her playing fits into a larger arrangement.

Nussbaum has great control of dynamics. He’s not a flashy player, and definitely doesn’t have the biggest kit on the block, but he’s expert at bringing the music to a boil. Wow, I’m using a lot of food metaphors here, aren’t I?

Nussbaum, the composer, was represented by a gorgeous melodic number I think was called “Insight/And Light.” He’s yet to release a solo album, despite appearing on countless CDs, but that’s about to change with The Lead Belly Project, which is coming out in the New Year on Sunnyside.

Both Wall and Baum brought in arrangements of Beatles songs, “With a Little Help from My Friends” (her) and “Norwegian Wood” (him). What impressed me is the way both versions were about teasing out the jazz in these exquisite pop melodies. Believe me, jazz can pander to pop, and it often does to Lennon-McCartney. Marsella really excelled on this medley.

That’s about it. Nussbaum’s product is here. He’s going to be on my WPKN radio show in February, and back with Wall and other friends (including Fairfield County guitarist Bill Bickford) at Westport 323 January 11. Wall plays there regularly with a shifting cast. Check here for the schedule.

The Connecticut-based Irving S. Moorin Charitable Trust is here. It would be a very worthy cause even if it didn’t bring quality jazz to liven up winter on one of the longest days of the year.

Here’s some nice video from that night. The performance is their version of Byard’s “Strolling Along”: