Soweto Kinch at Miner Auditorium, May 19, 2022

SFJAZZ presents SFJAZZ 2021-22 Season Resident Artistic Director Soweto Kinch's Black Peril
Robert M. Miner Auditorium
SFJAZZ Center, 205 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA
7:30 PM, Thursday, May 19, 2022

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2022 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2022 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[7:32 PM] {lights down; greetings and announcements by Randall Kline; waiting}

1. [7:34 PM] One Destiny
2. [7:39 PM] Sidewalk Sermon
   [7:41 PM] {Thanks and greetings from SK}
3. [7:45 PM] Alms
4. [7:51 PM] Sirens »
5. [7:56 PM] Savages »
6. [8:00 PM] Liberation Rag
7. [8:06 PM] Stranger's Home
8. [8:09 PM] Homecoming
   [8:20 PM] {SK mentions that tonight is the live premiere of this material}
9. [8:24 PM] Tripwire
   [8:31 PM] {more SK yack}
10. [8:32 PM] Riot Music
11. [8:37 PM] Syncomania
    [8:40 PM] {SK: partial band introduction & long follow-up talk by SK about the suite; Friday's livestream shows Revival Time and Black Friday following Syncomania, but I'm pretty sure those tunes were NOT played tonight}
12. [8:46 PM] Sidewalk Sermon (repeat)
    [8:48 PM] {final applause and bows; no encore tonight}

• Beth Custer: clarinet;
• Ross Eustis: trumpet;
• Gregory Hutchinson: drums;
• Soweto Kinch: alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, laptop, percussion, rap vox;
• Luke Kirley: tuba;
• Eric Lewis AKA ELEW: piano, keyboards;
• Danny Lubin-Laden: trombone;
• Melecio Magdaluyo: tenor saxophone, flute;
• Mike Olmos: trumpet;
• Nicholas Payton: trumpet;
• Christian Pepin: timbales, percussion;
• Marcus Shelby: contrabass;
• Adam Theis: trombone, percussion;
• Don Vappie: guitar, banjo.

A lengthy section mid show featured audio of Marcus Garvey's 'Look for me in the whirlwind' speech of 1924. Text of that is shared here. Given the date, I'm inclined to think the audio heard today is a dramatic recreation rather than an original live recording.

While I enjoyed the show, it seemed to me that much of tonight's performance was rather tentative – as if the band hadn't had enough time to rehearse performing together. That impression was reinforced towards the end of the show when Soweto had trouble naming the players (shouldn't have been hard to have prepared him a list to read off, right?), and then followed that up with a repeat of one of the tunes played earlier in the night. Ah well, that's what I get for buying in the premiere performance. I bet they'll be better for tomorrow night's live stream!

Richard Scheinin posted a short piece about Kinch at On the Corner.

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!

Bill Evans (no, not that one, silly) also posted a gallery of photos from tonight's Black Peril show. Visit his site to check them out!

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2022 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2022 event list! ☸ On to the next event!