Terence Blanchard
2013-09-05
Miner Auditorium
SFJAZZ Center, 205 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA
7:30 PM, Thursday, September 5, 2013

[7:33 PM lights down, announcements from RK]

1. Magnetic
2. Hallucinations
3. ? $ [set ends 8:33 PM]

[8:56 PM lights down]

1. Central Focus »
2. Ashé
3. Pet Step Sitter's Theme Song
   [show ends 9:54 PM, no encore]

• Fabian Almazan: piano, keyboards;
• Terence Blanchard: trumpet, effects;
• Justin Brown %: drums;
• Joshua Crumbly: contrabass;
• Brice Winston: tenor saxophone.

• Ravi Coltrane: $ soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone;
• Lionel Loueke: guitar, vox.

What an excellent show! I was thoroughly entertained!! The gig started out really strong, with Brice leading the way on Magnetic with a marvelously inventive solo. Hallucinations was appropriately off kilter, with Fabian, Terence and Lionel all played with various quirky effects.

Although the hall looked to be a little bit empty at the start of the show, when we rose to applaud at the end of the set, it was apparent that a lot of folks had arrived late, and the only open seating available were the top price sections at extreme left and extreme right. Looking about with my eagle eye, I spotted a couple who looked to be leaving, and so managed to move from the balcony down to a pretty choice seat in the 10th row for the second set.

For my money, the highlight of the show was Ashé, which begain with an amazing piano solo from Fabian Almazon, and then segued into a marvelously spacey ballad that just grew and grew and grew until it ended in a thunderously majestic conclusion. Wow! That one's from Terence's 2007 album, A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) — not currently in my collection, but that's a situation that will soon be rectified!

I might have been a little bummed that they didn't do an encore, but when each tune averages about 20 minutes long, I can understand why they might not want to spin another!

% Subbing at the last minute for Kendrick Scott.

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