I wasn’t old enough to get into the Village Vanguard back in the days of Bill Evans, the great pianist most associated with the club in the 1960s and ’70s. I compensated by going as often as possible to hear Tommy Flanagan in the ’80s and ’90s. Kenny Barron, who is appearing at the Vanguard this week with his trio, is the recipient of a new award I’ve just created, titled the “Bill Evans-Tommy Flanagan Memorial Award for the Pianist Whose Trio I Most Enjoy Hearing at the Vanguard” – and the competition, which also includes Barry Harris and Bill Charlap, is steep.

The rest of Mr. Barron’s trio is Kiyoshi Kitagawa, that rare bassist whom I would describe with the adjective “graceful,” and Francisco Mela, that rare drummer whom I would describe with the adjective “witty.” I can’t recall having heard any combination of three musicians play so quietly at the Vanguard – no showboating, crowd-pleasing stunts here.

The first piece was “Surrey With the Fringe on Top,” the Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune that was first brought to modern jazz by pianists Ahmad Jamal and Mary Lou Williams, then turned into a standard by Sonny Rollins and the Miles Davis-John Coltrane combination. Mr. Barron started with the verse, out of tempo and unaccompanied, then headed into the chorus. He introduced some contrapuntal figures behind the melody early on, but just when I thought he was going baroque, he took an abrupt turn and headed for the blues instead.

His playing became heavier and denser as the track went on, but he never did the obvious thing: building a banging crescendo that might goose a crowd. Instead, he increased the excitement by making his lines ever more elegant and interesting, weaving labyrinthine patterns around the chords and finding his way out of them. He didn’t have to make a lot of noise to command our attention.

From “Surrey,” Mr. Barron moved to “Lullaby,” a beautiful, tranquil original. The piece is composed of long but simple lines, decorated with chromatic embellishments suggestive of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. He again started with a long, unaccompanied solo before the bass and drums entered stealthily behind him, the latter playing softly on mallets. Again, he created excitement without playing loudly enough to wake a baby.

The next standard, “The Very Thought of You,” provided a clear illustration of British composer-lyricist Ray Noble’s 1934 thesis on the importance of thought and ideas. Mr. Barron started by using the melody as verse, but played it in an increasingly abstract manner; when he kicked into tempo, he then played the tune much more recognizably. Here, he sustained the light, almost classical feeling he had been nurturing all evening, buoyed by Mr. Kitagawa’s crystalline touch on the bass.

The climax of Wednesday’s opening set was a second original, “Cook’s Bay.” In 1964, Mr. Barron was part of Dizzy Gillespie’s sextet when the trumpeter recorded one of the very few albums of jazz calypsos, “Jambo Caribe.” “Cook’s Bay,” which Mr. Bar ron has recorded with larger groups, is a characteristically understated melody built around Caribbean rhythms – such a simple and catchy line that everyone in the club is usually humming it on the way out the door.

Mr. Barron started like a steamer luxuriating through the islands, then encountered a few tropical storms along the way. In the coda, he passed Cuba, which he acknowledged with a montuno pattern, and headed for New Orleans, which Mr. Mela referenced with a street parade-style backbeat. This was a heck of a trip.

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There are better pianists around than George Wein, and certainly much better singers, but I’ve heard few evenings more moving than Mr. Wein’s one-shot set of songs at Feinstein’s on Monday night. In recent years, the impresario of the Newport and JVC Jazz Festivals has limited his public appearances to occasional guest turns in swing-oriented concerts. Though he has a distinct knack for putting over a tune, he cautioned that Monday’s recital would be as rare as Brigadoon, the musical-comedy Scottish village that appears only once every 100 years.

Mr. Wein was supported by a stellar rhythm section of guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, bassist Jay Leonhart, and drummer Kenny Washington. The emotional zenith consisted of a pair of songs about love and loss, “Music, Maestro, Please” and “I’m Stepping Out With a Memory Tonight,” both by Herb Magidson and Allie Wrubel. Mr. Wein performed the second at another club a year and a half ago, but it has taken on much greater significance since the passing last August of his wife of more than 47 years, Joyce Wein, one of the great ladies of the jazz world. He could barely get through the lyric without breaking down, and neither could I.

The Kenny Barron Trio at the Village Vanguard until March 26 (178 Seventh Avenue South, 212-255-4037).