Timing is everything in the music of Vince Giordano, who is leading his 11-piece band, the Nighthawks, every Wednesday this month at the Iridium. The word “timing” refers to several things: It indicates the band’s propensity for old-time music,mostly the hot jazz of the 1920s and early ’30s; it also nods to the way technology shaped musical content in the 78 RPM era, when even the most far-out jazz record was three minutes long. More important, it dictates the way Mr. Giordano plays this music, which is, to put it gingerly, fast as a bastard.

Mr. Giordano once said that the most reliable way to ensure that his 10 tuxedo-wearing sidemen would play with the energy he demanded was to kick off every song as fast as it could possibly be played. Indeed, this leader drives his men relentlessly hard; watching them at the Iridium on Wednesday night, I could feel every one of those 78 revolutions per minute.

But Mr. Giordano doesn’t just count off a tempo or wave a stick. He helms the rhythm section, switching among his string bass, tuba, and B-flat bass saxophone. In other words, he works himself even harder than the rest of the band, with the possible exception of Rob Garcia, the hardest-driving of the several drummers in Mr. Giordano’s pool of percussionists.

A decade ago, when the Nighthawks used to play for dancers at the old Red Blazer Too (currently Swing 46), they included a lot more pop songs and medium-tempo foxtrots — the band even had a boy singer at that time. Now that the group plays mainly in jazz clubs where there’s no dancing, the Nighthawks focus on mega-fast instrumentals that would give apoplexy to even the most athletic dancers. To play in this band, you need cummerbunds of steel.

Mr. Giordano takes most of the vocals, and they are mainly of the rhythmic variety. The set’s opening number, “Dinah,” was highly inspired by Louis Armstrong, with the Armstrong role divided between the group’s star trumpeter, Jon Kellso, and the leader’s singing. The band continued in a Satchelmouthed vein with “Sugar Foot Stomp,” which Armstrong played with both King Oliver and Fletcher Henderson. It was an illustration of the limits of jazz repertory. The trumpet solo, again played by Mr. Kellso,has become part of the orchestration and no one should ever mess with it; clarinetist Dan Block, however, felt no compunction about restricting himself to what had been played on the original record.

“Blue Minor,” written by Edgar Sampson for the Chick Webb band, was the first piece where the hand of the arranger predominated. The 1934 work is true to its title until the bridge, when it goes into a major key.

No one was more versed in the art of contrast than Duke Ellington, and Mr. Giordano played an early Ellington masterpiece, “East St. Louis Toodle-oo,” as a way of illustrating the Maestro’s deft juxtapositions of major and minor, dark and light, mystery and exultation. The “Toodle-oo” began with Mr. Kellso growling like a wild beast, following the path of Ellington’s great trumpeter, Bubber Miley, and climaxed in a two-baritone duet involving Mr. Block and Andy Stein.

We finally got a pop standard near the end of the opening set, but in an unusual fashion: The band transformed Ray Noble’s “The Very Thought of You” from a dance number with vocals into a feature for Mr.Stein,now playing his violin. It provided a stark contrast to the guttural blues. In another intriguing juxtaposition, the Nighthawks followed the explosive Dixieland number “Some of These Days”with the smooth sophistication of Benny Carter’s “Nightfall.”

After another Carter-associated piece, “I Love It,” Mr. Giordano called “12th Street Rag” as a closer.This was a surprise, since the Kansas City-derived tune bounces amiably but is not quite the high-octane screamer the band usually finishes with. But Mr. Giordano made everything right by calling “Casa Loma Stomp” as an unplanned encore: This was a blazing exhibition of musical fireworks that seemed perfectly appropriate for Independence Day week.

***

On Friday night at the Rubin Museum,the pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa will perform music from their new CD, “Raw Materials” (Savoy Jazz). It seems appropriate that these two Asian-American jazz standouts should perform in a gallery devoted to Himalayan art in a concert series produced by the Jazz Museum in Harlem. Indeed, Mr. Mahanthappa successfully channels the big, echoing saxophone sound that African-American sax masters of the 1960s — most notably John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders — used when they wanted to evoke India and the East. And the CD is a journey of contrasting tones and textures that is equal parts Harlem and the Himalayas. This figures to be a can’t-miss event.

Giordano will perform again on July 12, 19 & 26 at the Iridium (1650 Broadway at 51st Street, 212-582-2121). Iyer and Mahanthappa will perform on July 7 at the Rubin Museum (150 W. 17th Street, 212-620-5000).