Benny Green at Yoshi's, November 30, 2021

Yoshi's presents Benny Green
Yoshi's
Jack London Square, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland, CA 94607-3506 USA
8:00 PM, Tuesday, November 30, 2021

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[7:59 PM] {lights down, announcements, Benny out; brief greeting}

1. [8:01 PM] the Soulful Mr. Timmons (James Williams)
2. [8:06 PM] No Smoking (Horace Silver)
3. [8:10 PM] You're My Everything (Harry Warren)
4. [8:16 PM] Pyramid (Horace Silver)
5. [8:22 PM] Place St. Henri (Oscar Peterson)
6. [8:27 PM] ? (unnamed Johnny Mandel tune)
   [8:33 PM] {Benny talks about writing the next tune for Christian McBride}
7. [8:34 PM] Captain Hook (Benny Green)
8. [8:40 PM] Minor Mishap (Tommy Flanagan)
9. [8:44 PM] ? (unidentified tune #2)
   [8:49 PM] {Benny talks about Benny Carter's advice to him: “Just play the effen piano”}
10. [8:52 PM] When Lights Are Low (Benny Carter)
11. [8:58 PM] Naturally (Benny Green)
12. [9:02 PM] Say You're Mine (Duke Pearson)
13. [9:07 PM] ? (unidentified tune #3: a classic, maybe Here's That Rainy Day?)
    [9:10 PM] {set ends}
    
    Encore
14. [9:12 PM] ? (unidentified tune #4)
    [9:14 PM] {show ends: Benny waves goodbye, then darts offstage}

• Benny Green: piano.

I bought tickets for this show a few weeks ago after Yoshi's sent me email offering a discount – turns out that it was just enough to offset the ebrite ordering fees, but anything's better than nothing, right?

We headed down to Jack London Square and got there pretty early. Made for easy parking, and the weather was nice, so waiting outside in line wasn't much of an ordeal.

I was really surprised when they let us inside to discover that the entire front half of the house was tagged: I guess they sold a lot of dinner seats! No matter! We got a pair at the center high-top table: great for watching and listening. The house filled up pretty well by show time. It wasn't quite sold out, but darn good for a Tuesday night. Maybe it's the hometown boy makes good thing? I dunno.

I thought the show was really good. I really enjoyed the tunes he played that had a gospel or blues tinge to them: Captain Hook, for example. Benny plays with a lot of speed and power, and that flashy stuff probably gets him more attention, but I was glad that he saw fit to include a few slower tunes too, like Say You're Mine– all the better to give the ear a respite from the hot stuff.

He paused after every other tune to catch his breath and say a word or two, although most of the time his banter was simply an introduction of the next tune or back announcement of the previous one (and I wish he'd named the four tunes noted above too). I appreciate that effort! It's not quite as interesting as hearing stories, but he was way more conscientious about it than most performers, thanks Benny!

On a more sober note, I was more than a little unhappy to see that Yoshi's staff did absolutely nothing to check vax status or encourage/enforce mask-wearing: my guess is that at least 50% of the audience was unmasked the entire time. What with folks packed in tightly, I personally felt squeamish just raising my mask to drink my beer: makes me think twice about visiting them again while the pandemic is still sputtering on.

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2021 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2021 event list! ☸ On to the next event!