SFJAZZ presents A Tribute to Gil Scott-Heron featuring Eric Harland's Voyager with Brian Jackson
2016-01-09
Miner Auditorium
SFJAZZ Center, 205 Franklin St, San Francisco, CA
7:30 PM, Saturday, January 9, 2016

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

[6:74 PM lights down]
[Wide-ranging, free conversation, ending with brief Q&A]
[Thanks and done, 7:11 PM]

[7:33 PM lights down]

1. [7:33 PM] [tape playback: Gil Scott-Heron _We Beg Your Pardon (Pardon Our Analysis)_]
2. [7:37 PM] The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
3. [7:49 PM] All We Got
4. [8:00 PM] Running
5. [8:05 PM] Winter in America
   [8:20 PM long pause while EH yacks, then introduces the band]
6. [8:28 PM] Gun »
7. [8:42 PM] (drum duet)
8. [8:51 PM] Hello Sunday ! Hello Road!
   [set ends 9:04 PM]
    
   Encore
   (add Martin Luther McCoy, Robert Mailer Anderson)
9. [9:04 PM] Whitey on the Moon (RMA)
10. [9:11 PM] Liberation Song (Red, Black and Green) (BJ/CT/ML)
    [show ends 9:20 PM]

Eric Harland's Voyager

• Taylor Eigsti: piano, keyboards;
• Eric Harland: drums, percussion;
• Julian Lage: guitar;
• Keita Ogawa: drums, percussion;
• Harish Raghavan: bass;
• Walter Smith III: tenor saxophone;
• Chris Turner: vox;
  with special guests
• Robert Mailer Anderson: vox (t09);
• Brian Jackson: keyboards, vox (t10);
• Martin Luther McCoy: vox (t10).

We enjoyed a surprisingly easy drive over to San Francisco (on a Saturday night? Unprecedented!), made a quick stop for a Powerball ticket ($900B+?!, Oh my!), then lucked into an open parking spot on Fell, less than a block from SFJAZZ. Looks like everything is going our way!

We entered the building to find the house still closed, so we sat for a few minutes, surfing the web and nibbling from a bag of spicy nuts and dried fruit. Not really a dinner substitute, more just a bite to postpone the next meal awhile longer. And then the doors opened, and we made our way in to a choice pair of seats next to a staff guy shooting video of the pre-show talk for the house archives.

The talk itself was pretty good, and touched on a wide variety of topics: Eric's history, Brian's history, how Brian and Gil got started, how drummers manage to play different rhythms, and so on, and so on. Good stuff, I'm glad we made it!

And the show was excellent, if not quite up to the absolutely stellar mark set by last night's Fela tribute. I was a trifle disappointed that they didn't include classics like Lady Day and John Coltrane, Johannesburg or We Almost Lost Detroit, but you can't always get what you want, right?

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!