Omar Sosa GFS Trio with Paolo Fresu and Trilok Gurtu at Miner Auditorium, April 23, 2017

SFJAZZ presents the Omar Sosa GFS Trio, featuring Paolo Fresu and Trilok Gurtu
Robert M. Miner Auditorium
SFJAZZ Center, 205 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA
7:00 PM, Sunday, April 23, 2017

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[7:05 PM lights down, announcements from Randall Kline, band out]

1. [7:10 PM] (unidentified tune #1) φ
2. [7:20 PM] (unidentified tune #2) φ
3. [7:32 PM] (unidentified tune #3) φ
4. [7:46 PM] (unidentified tune #4, mostly (?entirely?) without Paolo) ©
5. [8:03 PM] (unidentified tune #5, without Trilok) †
6. [8:11 PM] (unidentified tune #6) †φ [8:19 PM Paolo swaps back to fulgelhorn]
   [set ends 8:28 PM]
    
   Encore
7. [8:29 PM] (unidentified tune #7) φ
   [show ends 8:43 PM]

• Paolo Fresu: † trumpet, φ flugelhorn, electronics;
• Trilok Gurtu: tabla, © cajon, percussion, vox;
• Omar Sosa: piano, keyboards, percussion, vox.

Aside from Randall's introduction, there was very little talking tonight, and given my lack of familiarity with the music of this trio, the result is a pretty useless setlist. I did make a few additional notes about who was doing what when, but not enough to really count, and overall, I'm going to rate my effort here tonight as only slightly better than a total failure! I know Omar played percussion on the piano (with wire brushes) on two tunes, for example, but which ones? Darned if I can remember now!

The show, on the other hand, was consistently interesting. While a couple of the tunes seemed to follow a traditional head - jam - head pattern, some of them seemed to be more just vamps or groove statements that functioned as a base for the participants to invent responses and conversations. Tune #4 consisted mainly of drum-talk traded back and forth between Trilok and Omar (who seemed surprisingly fluent … a surprise because I don't recall ever hearing him sing drums before. Maybe it's something new he picked up from working with Trilok?). Anyways, it was a fun night, even though I can't tell you much about what they played!

In the encore, Paolo began playing a very la-la-la-ish line on his flugelhorn, and picking up on it, Omar got the crowd to start singing along – we can all join together with the band – and once that was going solidly well, Paolo walked offstage to play from the floor of the hall, then moved on to a spot about six or seven rows up on the Stage Right stairway. Must have been pretty cool to be down in the main hall for that one; from my spot in the upper balcony, I could hear him fine, but it was really tough to see him, even with the house lights turned up.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2017 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2017 event list! ☸ On to the next event!