Not quite a week later, I’m finally catching up on last weekend. A full weekend of Monterey Jazz Festival activities is clearly not enough jazz (hah!), so we decided to get in on some more.
On Monday, we (Edi, Steve, Angel and I) went to San Francisco. We hit Pier 39 for a little shopping, dinner, and otherwise fun. After sleeping in, lunch in Carmel, and a longer-than-expected drive, we had just barely enough time to enjoy the offerings at Pier 39 before heading to Yoshi’s in San Francisco.
Yoshi’s has been a jazz standard bearer in Oakland for decades. The current 330-seat Jack London Square location has, for over 10 years now, been one of the very best jazz clubs in the world for live jazz performances where the music itself is the primary (if not sole) focus. It’s not much of a social place, but the acoustics and sight lines make for a world class live jazz listening environment.
Just under a year ago, Yoshi’s opened its second location. It is a $10 Million project in San Francisco featuring a state-of-the-art 400+ seat jazz club. Topping Yoshi’s not-so-cheap Oakland facility sounded ambitious, so I was quite excited to check out the new place in San Francisco.
Brian Blade was on the menu several times at the Monterey Jazz Festival. One of those performances was with his own band, the Brian Blade Fellowship Band, but I wasn’t able to catch it. I did see him with Joshua Redman (great) and Wayne Shorter (not as great). I was hoping that he’d really shine with his own band at Yoshi’s and he didn’t disappoint. In fact, not only did he not disappoint, the show was way better than even my highest expectations.
I have seen and heard him play with several other artists before but never his own band. The best word I can come up with to describe their music is musical. That’s the highest compliment I think I can pay, and delivering it to a drummer-led-band is nearly paradoxical.
The songs were original but reminiscent of familiar styles – a blues, a gospel song, a ballad (or two), not-quite-funky smooth jazz, etc. They all featured rich but recognizable chords, simple melodies and harmonies, intense chemistry and world class dynamics. Brian is a wild guy to watch but pure pleasure to listen to. He’s not short on chops at all, but clearly focuses his attention on music. Maybe he’s the artistic or creative version of the more big band / mainstream / ‘fun’ Jeff Hamilton (also a favorite of mine), who seems to have a similar devotion to music first.
The acoustics were absolutely perfect for his performance. The intensely quiet moments were delivered with unparallelled accuracy. Neither the building nor the sound system got in the way of the musicians communicating directly with every individual in the audience (or at least at our table). And the louder moments weren’t overpowering. The aural experience was, frankly, pure pleasure, thanks to the combination of a world class band playing in a world class jazz club.
Yes, it was a good night… Thanks Brian…
V-