Jazz sucks. I don’t particularly care to ever hear it again, especially live. But this condition is probably temporary, an unfortunate but unavoidable byproduct of attending eight Yoshi’s sets — two per night, ninety minutes a shot, twelve solid hours total — in four days.
I remain confident I will recover my affinity for jazz. David Sánchez, sadly, is most likely lost to me forever.
As Yoshi’s freaks know, the deified Jack London Square sushi and jazz outpost — conveniently located next to Ben & Jerry’s! — tends to invite its big-shot artists for an extended weekend. The standard swing: Thursday through Sunday, two sets a night, 8 and 10 p.m. Except Sundays, when you get a 2 p.m. kid-friendly matinee and then a climactic, blowout 8 p.m. close.
Although, say, trumpet superstar Arturo Sandoval will rumble into town for a whopping six-night, twelve-set stay early next week, most Arturophiles will purchase one ticket for one show on one night, with the reasonable assumption that if you’ve seen one Arturo set in November 2004, you’ve essentially seen all ten.
But ah, this is jazz, famed purveyor of improvisation, spontaneity, surprise. Does the 10 p.m. Thursday crowd secretly worry that the 8 p.m. Friday show was far superior? Does Saturday night innately favor drum solos? Does one randomly selected show per artist feature rampant violence and/or nudity, and you’re just constantly picking the wrong one?
Is there ever really a difference?
“It really varies act to act,” says Peter Williams, artistic manager at Yoshi’s. “If it’s somebody who has a huge book, you could hear completely different songs and different sets every night. Whereas, somebody might be touring in support of a new CD, and you’ll hear some of the same stuff every night. But even night to night, if David plays a tune from his new CD Thursday, it may sound completely different on Friday. You’ll hear people do things as a ballad one night and as an uptempo thing the next night.”
So here’s our mark: David (that’s Da-veed) Sánchez. Puerto Rican Latin jazz dude, mid-thirties. Well respected (Grammy, etc.). New CD, Coral, an orchestral sorta thing recorded in Prague. Thursday through Sunday, two shows apiece. Bring on the violence and/or nudity. And thank god Ben & Jerry’s is across the street.
Thursday
Yoshi’s waitresses get hit on a lot, evidently. One gentleman intimates that he has snuck booze into the club, generating a lot of waitress-to-table nervous laughter and, it should be noted, absolutely no sex appeal. Chump.
Ah, but David, David, David. One can easily imagine Sánchez pickin’ up comely lasses at the T.G.I. Friday’s bar after-hours — he’s sleek, svelte, smiley. He introduces his quartet immediately: Adam Cruz (another looker) on drums, homely-by-comparison Edsel Gomez on piano, and upright bassist Hans Glawischnig on bass, an Austrian-American dude enamored of goofy facial expressions and patently ludicrous paisley shirts.
David plays it loose, smilingly wielding his sax like a bat and knocking imaginary dirt off his imaginary cleats as the boys launch into Coral‘s title track, a Heitor Villa-Lobos tune. A cell phone rings immediately, but an unfazed Sánchez launches into a big honkin’ BLEAT (breath) BLEAT (breath) BLEEEEEAT climax nearly as fast, theatrically yanking his sax back from the mic for the big honkin’ notes, and immediately commanding That’s Why My Name’s on the Goddamn Marquee status. Yeah, a dude behind me growls.
But the second tune, an original named “Peace” (“We definitely need it,” David earnestly notes), truly kills it. A complicated, stop-start bass-and-piano riff chases its tail in tight circles as David honks lustily and Cruz triggers a slow-burn snare drum avalanche. It finally breaks and reverts to solo sax as a train goes rumbling by — we can feel both the horn and the rumble equally. Home freakin’ run.
Two other tunes distinguish themselves: Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar” gets the brush-drums ballad treatment: long high notes, pregnant pauses, and a general pre-psycho Tom Waits feel. Nice piano solo. Yeahhhh, says the dude behind me, lower-register this time. And a bluesy piece credited to Dominican Republic big-shot José “El Canario” Alberto features a strutting chorus, easily the most out-there piano and sax solos of the set, and generally Sánchez’ most Latin jazz-centric inclinations. Dirrrty.
“Well, that was nice,” notes an awestruck gentleman at my table as David reintroduces the band and scores a 3/5 standing O. “That guy’s got tone till next Tuesday.” And here he’s only gotta last till Sunday.
Ben & Jerry’s interlude: Oatmeal Cookie Crunch.
I return for the 10 p.m. set as chicks clutching CDs chirpily chat up drummer Cruz, who is discussing the band’s hotel accommodations.
Inside, the Waitress Safari begins anew. “So, are you a fan of jazz?” one patron suavely asks, before he and his buddy avidly discuss drumming techniques, complete with table-pounding demonstration. Thanks to the club’s longstanding holdover policy — if the 10 p.m. set isn’t sold out, those with 8 p.m. tickets can stay for the second show — we’re guaranteed a completely new clutch of tunes in the second set, delivered in a more relaxed atmosphere. Thus, Paisley Hans is onstage, noodling on his bass before the lights even go down.
Eddie Palmieri’s “Adoración” provides us with a cheese-and-salsa appetizer, but “Canción del Cañaveral” trumps it, bursting in with a vicious, 100,000-Red-Sox-fans-stomping-their-feet-in-unison drum solo that leaves our eyes bugged out and our Cheeto chambers agape. I look up and one of the table pounders is staring at me in awe. “I still don’t think he broke a sweat,” he says.
David takes long sax solos thereafter, but he’s now officially fighting for onstage dominance. In between brawls, he makes endearingly awkward small talk — “That was an original tune. [Pause.] I wrote it” — and especially talks up his lovely experience making Coral in Prague. Evidently it was “somethin’ else.”
The rest of the set is a meandering, solo-juggling affair, pleasant but pretty indistinct. Lots of people leave early, including the table-pounders. Has the Burnout already begun? We’ll figure it out later.
Friday
The 8 p.m. crowd skews older; the Waitress Safari is therefore off. But David is more playful, convincing the “Welcome to Yoshi’s” voiceover guy to announce, along with the turn-off-your-cell-phone plea (ignored, again), that Hans is wearing a new shirt tonight. True to form, it’s hideous. A nice opening gambit before a note has been played.
Ah, but tonight is Piano Night. The set again begins with “Coral” and a cool-but-not-as-cool “Peace” (“We desperately need it”), but Edsel Gomez takes charge immediately; louder, angrier, more bombastic. He then absolutely kills it on “Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar” (once again slotted third), dropping resplendent high-pitched keyboard icicles, and suddenly I turn into the Yeah Guy.
So Edsel carries the day, despite the fact that from 10 p.m. Thursday on through the weekend, he accents his height by sitting on what appears to be either the Yellow Pages or a large book of sheet music spread out on the piano bench.
Prague was “truly a great learning experience.”
The El Canario tune still struts okay, but “The Elements II,” another Coral track, fares better with wild drum action at its conclusion; two guys sitting near the front actually high-five. Not bad, but Cruz never really gets to launch again like he did Thursday night. Furthermore, in the lobby afterward, his adoring ladies are replaced by some dude holding a cake and talking about Archie Shepp.
Ben & Jerry’s interlude: Dublin Mudslide.
As for 10 p.m., call it the Sex and the City set. Six thirtysomething women pile in front of me, and the appearance of a sleek, black-clad David inspires much woo-wooing and ahhhing and theatrical exhaling. Cruz is acknowledged in a similar manner. “We certainly hope you enjoy the evening,” David says. “I already do,” one woman mutters.
Her friends all toast with wine as a train rumbles by and “Adoración” rumbles on, its salsa part accentuated, friskier. But ballads move to the forefront: bowed bass, more lyrical sax lines, brushed drums, Edsel reverting from Jesus back to Amiable Piano Bar Guy. Even David’s banter is smoother, though the ladies giggle all the way through his Prague speech.
In the end, he’s “really happy to have you feeling the music as opposed to thinking the music. No thinking. Feeling.” You got that right.
Saturday
For the first time, I feel underdressed. Classy crowd, a little less conversation, a little more action. Paisley Hans wanders around pre-showtime, talking on a cell phone and sporting a fanny pack.
Seconds after David thanks us for giving him “a little bit of your time,” from the audience comes a whoops, crash, “shit.” A woman walks off soaked in something-or-another as “Coral,” which is getting awful stale, starts up.
David picks up the pace and thoroughly owns “Peace” (“We need peace, so we’re just callin’ it ‘Peace'”). He’s clearly vying for That’s Why My Name’s on the Goddamn Marquee status again after the drums and piano cascades of yore. So he’s a bit more intense, working deep-knee bends into his repertoire when he gets really excited. Our applause intensifies accordingly.
Hans takes a rare prominent bass solo and services it well. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” someone coos.
Prague: “Really great, really wonderful.”
David actually inspires a heckler momentarily during the El Canario strut: “Where’s the Latin at! C’mon, man!” The gentleman is answered and evidently satisfied by more deep-knee bends.
Ben & Jerry’s interlude: Having remembered suddenly that Yoshi’s has a full bar, no interlude is necessary this evening.
The late show features Sánchez’ best pass at “Adoración,” with a sax solo nearly heavy metal in its brute forcefulness. Deep-knee bends ahoy. After a passable drum solo, it’s on to more ballads, Hal Leonard’s “Ill Wind” buoyed by another rumbling train — the ultimate Yoshi’s X-factor. Management should pay Caltrain to run at super-specific times.
Sunday
And now, the much-vaunted afternoon kid-friendly set, indeed populated by a buncha ornery little cusses crammed into uncomfortably formal clothing and sawing through ice-cream scoops packed in little dishes with umbrellas. Onstage, David notes that kids have a very sharp sense of hearing, and that Hans likes kids a lot, and in fact is nicknamed “Uncle Hans.” Except Sanchez pronounces it like “Hands.” Nervous laughter.
For those afraid that “kid-friendly” means “play the Looney Tunes theme for an hour and a half,” David shuffles the setlist but not his MO, hopping from “Adoración” to El Canario to “Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar” with the same mixture of attack and defend. He certainly isn’t “smooth jazz,” but this is smoothly played jazz nonetheless.
The kids learn that Prague gave off “a whole different vibe.”
Edsel fires off his second-best piano performance of the weekend, but after his climactic solo, no one claps. I feel bad.
Other than a lack of appreciation for sterling keyboard work, the kids are fine, great, reasonably well behaved. Furthermore, they carry no cell phones. Only one little bugger is ushered out crying. “I hope it wasn’t us,” David quips.
I’ll bet anyone here $500 that that joke has been made before.
Ben & Jerry’s long-form interlude: Peanut Butter Cup.
Yoshi’s is generally 70 to 90 percent full for the eight o’clock set, but by ten, the crowd is dwindling because of early walkouts. Sunday evening’s closer is low tide, but the dudes make the most of it: More deep-knee bends for David, a Goofy Face-Off launched between Hans and Edsel. “Peace” (“We desperately need it”) goes okay, Edsel’s big piano solo actually gets applause this time, and Prague was “great, unbelievable.”
And then it ends: no violence, no nudity, no drastic quality and/or substance changes between sets. Jazz certainly isn’t rock in its reliance on the same set list, banter, and lighting cues night after night after night, but the pattern remains. In this case: attractive dudes, drums solos, peace, paisley, Prague. In time, I will recover my taste for all of these things. Except, perhaps, the paisley.
