SFJAZZ presents Hipsters and Hepcats featuring Jacqui Naylor
2014-07-18
Miner Auditorium
SFJAZZ Center, 205 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA
7:30 PM, Friday, July 18, 2014
[7:32 PM lights down, announcements from Randall Kline]
Low stress so far tonight: easy drive into the city around lunchtime; low key afternoon of work; easy drive across town and plenty of open parking spots around City Hall when I arrive (though most of them technically not available for an hour or so…). I park on Polk, then walk over to Gyro King and wait for Ting to arrive from BART. News from the latest Ukraine disaster scrolls incessantly on the TV up on the wall, but with an adjustment of my chair, the grim news is put out of view. Ting shows up, and we decide to split a chicken gyro platter, since it's a huge serving, and I'm not all that hungry tonight. Turns out to be just right – plenty for both of us! Still kinda early at this point, so we walk over to Beer Hall in order to watch the last two innings of tonight's Giants' game (whupping the Marlins, 9-1!). I order an Oaktown Brown, but I'm not sure that's what I'm served, as the beer that is delivered is quite dark, and tastes darker and more alcoholic than what I expected. Reading up, it appears that my notions were off base…I certainly got what is described by the folks are ratebeer: “not for wussies” indeed! Soon enough the game ends, so I quaff the remainder of my pour and we amble on over to SFJAZZ.
Being an under-appreciated local treasure, Jacqui hasn't managed to sell out the house, despite offering perfectly reasonable ticket prices. I'd guess that the hall is about 2/3 full. A pretty good turnout, and enough that the house hasn't lowered the scrims to block out the side sections. After opening remarks from Randall Kline, the show begins with the Johnny Mercer/Jimmy Van Heusen standard, I Thought About You, followed immediately with a very upbeat rendition of Gershwin's Summertime. Afterwards, Jacqui explains that the latter song was a mashup, played over an Allman Brothers tune. Got me there! I didn't catch that at all, though it was pretty obvious that the band wasn't playing the usual changes to Summertime! The set continued through a good mix of covers and originals, ending with another mashup.
The second set also started really strongly, commencing with a dreamy version of Michel Legrand's Windmills of Your Mind, and seconded with a mashup of the Talking Heads classic Once in a Lifetime sung over the primary riff of Weather Report's Birdland. Pretty cool, though a bit discombobulating, especially if you were expecting the song to follow the original arrangements of the base tune (since they always veered off-course), or found the re-rhythmed, re-melodicized delivery of the lyrics too stilted. I liked the approach, but thought they pushed a little too much in stuffing four such mashups into the second set. By midway through the set, the week's effort had caught up to me; my setlist notes got noticeably sloppier there! Oh well. Maybe I'll find info on the missing/incomplete tunes before too long, and if not, well, that's just how things play out sometimes!
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