Performances Attended

A few recent performances attended, am missing quite a few I think, these are the ones that I can recall off the top of my head; no dates provided: (mostly in reverse chronological order)

Karrin Allyson with Jon Hendricks and Nancy King - at Yoshi's

• -stayed for both sets; great performance! a scatfest; Hendricks showed up in a gold tux and a sailor captain's cap, King was very sweet, very cool and sophisticated voice, Allyson was everywhere-an awesome show.

Elvin Jones Birthday Salute - at Yoshi's

• -"With the sons of Ellis Marsalis drummer Jason and older brother Delfeayo on trombone, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, Anthony Wonsey on piano, Dave Liebman on saxophone, and Delbert Felix on bass, this show is sure to be filled with music that celebrates the spirit of one of Jazz’s greatest, generous hearted and most spirited musicians."
• -A great show; raw, powerful, Dave Liebman is an animal-he played his heart out on every song and it was nuts. The pianist was clean, cool, bluesy bebop flavor with a lot of octaves sustained.

Joe Gilman - Sacramento at Pete Escovedo's House

• -my piano teacher is a monster; played songs from his new Stevie Wonder tribute album;

Ricardo Peixoto and Marcos Silva Duo - at the JazzSchool in Berkeley

• -lush, swingin' Brazilian music. Marcos was great and his female friend sitting next to me in the audience was also very attractive; great duo performance.

Frank Morgan - at Yoshi's

• -went with Dellea
• -the guy was old, had to sit on a chair the whole time but he was good, old, sweet, sentimental very melodic; his trumpet player Sean Jones was a MONSTER, that guy is going to be big, played the whole time his fingers a blur! when he wasn't soloing, he stood there on stage with this giant grin on his face like he was laughing at the drummer, Akira Tana whose daughter also attends Davis, we talked briefly, snapped a few photos with Frank and Akira and the bassist. It's cool to see a Japanese guy hanging in the jazz scene with all these hipsters. But I loved Jone's tone on the trumpet, absolutely loved it loved it loved it, his performance was electrifying. I won't soon forget it.
  

Bobby Hutcherson - at Yoshi's

• -went with Evan, Kassenia, Paul, Dernie, Cindy, Matt, Misay, Jenny Oldham and her bf, Allison from Chn and the next night attended again with Jenny.
• -It was a great show, he was amazing, plus his piano player also knocked me out: Renee Rosnes! She can play harder than any other female pianist I've seen and in fact she played better than lots of male pianists, she has definitely changed my mind about female jazz pianists; her second performance the next day was totally different, her solos had a fugue like quality to them, I thought it was cool but Jenny being a classically trained pianist, was anticipating something else and understandibly thought it was a little boring. The sax player Miguel Zenon was amazing too, each of his solos reached a climax that felt like he was going to blow a hole through the roof.

Javon Jackson and Benny Green - at Yoshi's

• -went with Margot and Mary and Dex, Tim and Marc; Marc paid for dinner!
• -good show, Benny Green tore it up like I knew he would, him being the reason I went.

Anton Schwartz - under the overhang at Safeway in N. Davis

• -good show; went with Dellea and Cindy; Mary and Lucas showed up a bit later
• -he was awesome, came over to my place later for a private lesson, we chatted in the car-cool guy, into Vipassana as well; also into Mary haha.
• -looking forward to seeing him play with Joe Gilman

Dianne Reeves:

• -went with Misay, Kyle, Rawi, Cindy, Jenny, Laura
• -amazing amazing show; second time seeing her, was not disappointed. Her version of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" was sweet; Her pianist Peter Martin is a badass it was great seeing them up so close, especially compared to the last time at the Mondavi; got some amusing footage of people trying to dance to the music; everyone in the audience loved the show, they played an encore and played all sorts tunes: funk, standards, jazz standards, christmas etc. Very accessible but amazing music, I love seeing the people around me being touched by jazz

E.S.T. Esbjorn Svensson Trio

• at Yoshi's, went with Nancy; very cool show-the upright bass sounded like an electric guitar at times; he stuck a piece of paper under the piano strings to make it sound distorted; encore played 'Round Midnight. awesome show.

Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland, Wayne Shorter, Brian Blade

• SF Jazz; went with Blake, Ravi (and Sean?)
• very crazy, very cool

Herbie Hancock, Roy Hargrove, Michael Brecker

• Mondavi Center, went with Evan;
  

Bill Charlap

• Mondavi Center; they didn't really let loose, cool version of Westside Story song.
  

Stefon Harris

• Mondavi Center
  
• his version of 'Until' taken from the movie 'Kate and Leopald' was very haunting, beautiful on the vibraphones
  

Sonny Rollins

• Mondavi Center
• some of his solos went on longer than 20 minutes! Amazing! "See you all in the next life!"

Chick Corea

• Mondavi Center
• played Spain for his encore; mostly acoustic jazz
• had flamenco dancer!
  

Lynne Arrialle

• Yoshi's; with Nick
  

Uri Caine

• at Yoshi's; met Nick there
• one of the most exciting piano trios I've ever seen in my life; can't wait to see him again
  

Terence Blanchard

• at Yoshi's
  
• went with Margot, Mom, Dad; Dad loved it, surpisingly. Mom wasn't so impressed
• solo guitar perfomance lead-in to 'wadagbe'
  

Gonzalo Rubalcaba

• at Yoshi's, went with Margot
• a little boring for some reason, Nick said that he played the same thing on both sets; disappointing
  

McCoy Tyner, Joshua Redman, Brian Blade

• SF Jazz, went with Nick and his friend
• awesome show, played music of John Coltrane