I'm up in Seattle visiting friends and having a mini-vacation with my wife. This city is huge, compared to Portland. I don't get up here enough. What a great vacation from the laid back, rains all the time, town rolls up at 9:00pm, what is with this inelastic Oregon economy anyway(?), kind of daily life. Seattle rocks!
So, while my wife was out with the girls, I went over to Dimitriou's Jazz Alley to see my favorite sax player, David Sanborn. What a huge treat! I missed him in Portland a couple of weeks ago at a place called the Alladin. Let's just say, the Alladin typifies Portlandia while the Jazz Alley typifies Seattle. Really. No...really. These places are diametrically opposed as far as what the venues have to offer. Dimitriou's Jazz Alley has the restaurant style seating and drinks while the Alladin has a small auditorium seating venue where people go to focus on and enjoy the performance.
After this show, in Seattle, I kind of want to go back in time a week or so and see him at the Alladin. I mean, I wish I had seen him when he was in Portland. The manhattens at Jazz Alley were awesome. No question. Also, I had a perfect seat near the bar. Thank you to the waitress and people at Jazz Alley for letting me come to your place and enjoy a great seat. Anyway, I cannot say enough positive things about the musicality I heard tonight. There were literally no mistakes and it was a flawless performance. David jokes about his age but he is still playing like he's in his 30's to me. At his peak. I need to seriously look up the guitar player, bass player, drummer, and piano players in the band that goes on the road with him. They are the shit!!! They are uber-talented, I've seen them before, and every time I see those guys I just enjoy listening to their talent. His tour band lays it down for David with accuracy and a purely smokin' groove. I love David Sanborn for the way his music makes me just love life. The music builds and builds, makes you want to dance, and damn...I get it! Love his music.
Jazz Alley...well, they can continue to bring rich people in and support the arts in that manner. I just have to say, that looking around at the audience I just wanted to barf. So many people just were not moved at all. There were a few people, two or three, that I saw were gettin' it and lovin' it. But f!, I just don't see how a person can see/hear David Sanborn and not feel something! That guy is up there pouring his heart out into his music and doing great things with it and getting the audience involved with the whole band. They obviously do not know who he is and what his body of work consists of. What a monumental artist of our time! It just blows me away, Seattle, how your audience didn't get it. Seattle liked the songs that have been converted into "easy listening" and that get a lot of radio play. But the really good stuff that David played where he embellished and in part imitated his own recorded solos, that was the shit! That made me move to the groove and enjoy the moment in which he was playing. I mean, he played a song that he wrote for an ex girlfriend of what must have been a while ago. And he played it with the kind of soul that you would expect when someone loved and lost. Damn! That shit was good.
You know, there are people, good sax teachers, who have said and who believe that David plays too much in the altissimo range. I read a recent blog post from a sax man I respect for his generosity, talent, knowledge, and ability. But ya know, Mr. Sanborn is playing and he is touring and he is actively contributing to the jazz community in a way that inspires kids to play saxophone. We need all of that we can get in this day. In no way has David ruined sax players. Instead I think he is out there doing what he loves and in many ways is showing people how to do what they love in music and getting people inspired. Me, for one.
Thank you David for a fantastic performance. I look forward to your next CD release. Wish I could take some sax lessons with you or just jam some time. That would be fun.