SFJAZZ presents Superstar Quartet featuring Joey DeFrancesco, Billy Hart, Bobby Hutcherson, and David Sanborn
2014-02-20
Miner Auditorium
SFJAZZ Center, 205 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA
7:30 PM, Thursday, February 20, 2014
[7:31 PM lights down, announcements from RK]
We find nearby parking on the street like usual, then walk over to the Grove (dreaming of chicken pot pie, yum!), only to be thwarted by a large crowd – must be the symphony and/or ballet tonight – so we hustle off up Hayes to Arlequin instead. The place is quite crowded, but the line to order is fairly short, and a table opens up behind us just as we reach the order station. Perfect! So then it's a hasty meal of split sandwich and shepherd's pie (sorry, no food pix to offer tonight), finished off by a pair of chocolate chip cookies artfully balanced atop the water carafe.
“Enough food p*rn blather!,” you interject, “tell me something about the show!”
Yeah, well, right then. It was a good one! One long set. By a bunch of superstars. Oldest of our four superheroes, Jamali Billy Hart has gone grey, and he's a bit chunkier than he was when I first saw him some 30-odd years ago. But he still lays out tasty licks and fills, built on a solid kick drum foundation.
David Sanborn also bears the vicissitudes of age, looking kind of frail from his battles with childhood polio, and he rests on a bar stool at times (literally sitting things out) rather than standing through the set. But man, he blows hard, yeah! Still got fire in the belly! And his humility – expressing his gratitude to be part of the group in both word and deeds – is refreshing. Superstars need not be primadonnas.
Baby Joey (barely in his 40's – a generation or more younger than the other superstars), he's lookin' alright. Still a big dude (takes after Papa John, natch!), but not looking quite as morbidly obese as he did in the past. (This might also have something to do with my vantage point–aways up in the balcony, I'm not really able to pick out detail any more. My power of super-duper vision deteriorating with the rest of this earthly coil) Anyways, Joey is just shredding. Absolutely ripping it up. Hammering that B-3 into submission. Totally killing it on every solo. What a monster! No trumpet from him tonight though, and no singing. Just buddha at the bench, blasting us with the deeep Philly blues.
And then we get to the center of tonight's galaxy. The wizard of Montara, local hero and master of the universe, Bobby Hutcherson. Whereas he seemed to be pretty frail at last year's SFJAZZ gala opening, tonight he was positively frisky! Close your eyes and there's no trace of weariness or rust in those magnificent cascading mallet runs. Just the vibe. That bounce. The long metallic ringing sustain. The man in his element, grooving with the band. Sure, he needs a little extra time and support to move on and off stage. And once he's at the vibraphone, he doesn't move around all that much – kinda hard when you're tethered to an oxygen tank, but that's how it goes when you're battling emphysema. Anyways, that don't matter. Spirit is stronger than substance in this round, and like the others, it was truly a joy to hear him play!
Bravo to SFJAZZ for their part in getting this group together and getting a gig here in San Francisco!