Celebrating Jazz in the Present Tense featuring Myra Melford, et al.
2015-06-13
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater
701 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA
5:30 PM, Saturday, June 13, 2015

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2015 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2015 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

1. [5:42 PM] [Isabel Yrigoyen speaks]
2. [5:49 PM] [short film about the project]
3. [5:56 PM] [Isabel Yrigoyen introduces Oakland Future Trio]
4. [5:57 PM] Take the A Train
5. [6:03 PM] Red Headed Dancer
6. [6:14 PM] Cherokee
7. [6:24 PM] [Isabel Yrigoyen introduces the Lisa Mezzacappa - Kasey Knudsen duo; LM talks about Ornette]
8. [6:26 PM] ? (one or more tunes played as an uninterrupted suite)
9. [6:36 PM] [Isabel Yrigoyen introduces Myra Melford; MM speech; then MBJ joins MM for a jazz-poetry happening]
10. [6:41 PM] Black Joy in the Hour of Chaos
11. [6:48 PM] [Myra talks about Ornette while the next set of musicians set up: Rob Ewing, John Schott, Marcus Shelby, unidentified tenor sax]
12. [6:52 PM] Blue Monk (joined in-progress by Ari & Caleb)
13. [7:00 PM] It Might As Well Be Spring (joined by unidentified Kathak dancer; ?Mario? trumpet; Mikhi swaps in for Rob mid-tune)
    [formal part of the event concludes 7:12 PM; informal jam session begins shortly thereafter, but we head home…]

• Marc Bamuthi Joseph: vox;
• Myra Melford: piano;

Oakland Future Trio

• Ari Carpenter: bass;
• Caleb Sankoh: keyboards;
• Mikhi Woodley: drums.

• Kasey Knudsen: alto saxophone;
• Lisa Mezzacappa: contrabass.

Like some of the other YBCA Jazz events I attended over the past couple years, today's celebration had a slightly disorganized feel, as if they were throwing things together at the last minute and hoping that it would all work out fine. And for the most part, it did, though not without some frustration for me. The only complaint that I'll note here is the brevity of performance time from the ostensible headline acts. Whether this was a result of shoehorning too much into a small time slot, or my misunderstanding of what the event was about shall remain undetermined. Anyways, it was nice to be treated to snacks and drinks – and appropriate for a celebration! Probably should have stayed to see what happened with the jam session, but given the way things were rolling, we elected to duck out and head back home.

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2015 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2015 event list! ☸ On to the next event!