Herbie to Hornsby, Coast to Coast

I've had a very culturally fulfilling weekend. On Thursday I saw Bruce Hornsby with Christian McBride on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums at the Palace of Fine Arts. The concert blew me away. I'm already in awe of Hornsby. He's got ridiculous piano skills, really a cut above almost anyone I can think of. To top it off he's got his voice, which he could base his career on alone.

I've come to believe that its essential that an artist of that caliber stretch his musical wings to stay happy. He assembled a band of monster jazz players, and they knocked it out of the park. He sang only two songs. The rest were all instrumental, and were both freaking stellar and extraordinarily playful. They played some material that they had composed and a bunch of standards/covers that I hadn't heard of. Its clear that Bruce is a true scholar of music. I had been looking forward to this show all summer, and it didn't disappoint. He even brought out Bonnie Rait for the encore. Good times.

The next morning I flew to Boston. On Saturday, my bro and I met up in Boston for some pool and mohitos. He took me to Match for dinner, which is a fancy mini-burger and martini bar. The food was unbelievable. I actually ordered more food (lobster burger) after I ate my dinner, which is unheard of for me. It was that good. I also had a martini, which turned out to be two martinis since they give you a small shaker with the leftover drink in it. This means I was freaking smashed when we left and stumbled the two blocks to the Berkelee Auditorium, where we saw Herbie Hancock with his latest assembled band.

Let me take a moment to rant here. I went across the street to Sto' 2-4 to get some water (a necessity at this point) and munchies for the show. I walked into the theater and a security duder rips through my bag, finds the food and starts berating me. WTF? In SF, when you go to a fancy expensive jazz show, they do not search your bag. I can understand doing this in a club, but this totally shocked me, and the security guards was a getting in my face about it. I far prefer the SF laid back attitude.

Anywho, the Herbie show was very avante guard. It was a quartet this time (the drummer seriously blew me away), but it wasn't the high energy groove fest that my sloshed brain needed to stay engaged. It was all over the map, some times extremely quiet. The saving grace is that I think Herbie did far too much acid in the 60's. He really liked to talk before they played every single song. He talked for like 3-4 minutes every time, and the monologues often got very rambling and awkward. This pretty surprising for someone who's been in the performing business for like 40 years. Anyhow, it gave me ample opportunity to hit the water fountain after every song, and not miss a single note.

Its good times being back home though. I've really missed my folks. They've gone through all sorts of negative medical shit this summer, and it sucks being 3000 miles away. Its good to hang with my bro, see my in-laws, and catch up with friends.