Jazz It Up!

This afternoon I got an impromptu invitation from my sister, Kiki, to attend a jazz concert. She had forgotten until today that she had 4 free tickets to see Boney James. Neither of us had ever heard of him, but we learned that he is actually in the top 3 contemporary jazz sax players in the nation (I think Kenny G is first?). We went with Kiki's friend, Sarah, and Sarah's sister Annie, so it was a double sisters' date :)

I don't think any of us had a clue what to expect. It was in a part of town we'd never been to. It was an obviously nice part of town as we passed a Black Eyed Pea restaurant and none of the letters in their sign were burned out. We felt slightly underdressed when we got there as most women were in cute little summer dresses and most men were in fancy-ish outfits, many of which were topped off by fedoras. I don't think I have ever seen so many fedoras in one place. Apparently they are popular among the jazz crowd. Kiki was disappointed that she missed a chance to wear hers.

The first performer was another sax player. He was accompanied on the keyboard and the drums. His drummer was female and grinned through the entire performance. It was obvious that she loved playing the drums. That was actually something that struck me about all of the performers tonight - they all so obviously loved what they were doing. They made it more fun to watch because they were having so much fun. Both the first sax player and Boney were entertainers, not just musicians. I didn't know before tonight, but sax players are not confined to the stage by cords and amps and things like that. Both of them used a mic they clipped to the end of their sax that was connected to a box thingy in their pocket, allowing them to get off the stage and move around in the audience. They both frequently took advantage of this, playing directly to individual audience members, some of which even danced when they were in the spotlight.

Not surprisingly, considering his popularity and 3 grammy nominations, I preferred Boney over the first performer. First of all, the first performer got very, very sweaty. He was constantly mopping himself off with a white towel (which was even more obvious as he was wearing black), but even so, when he was sitting in the empty seat in front of me, playing to the lady in the seat in front of that one, you could see the sweat dripping off him. Ewww. Note to musicians possibly reading this blog entry - if you sweat profusely, don't get up close and personal with the audience. The first performer wasn't bad though - he was funny and played well. He couldn't dance worth beans though. My favorite of his moves was when he would randomly raise one of his feet slowly and stick it out in front of him. His keyboardist was very talented as well, but he couldn't dance either. He reminded me of one of those bird bobber things that has the bulb of red water at the end and keeps bobbing closer and closer to the glass of water. Occasionally, he would mix it up and go side to side instead.

I didn't know if perhaps playing the sax was just more physically demanding than I had imagined and every sax player got that sweaty. I was pleased to see that Boney did not. Maybe his fedora kept the stage lights from making him too hot. Just a theory to test if I ever happen to become a sax player. Boney had a guitarist/vocalist, who reminded me of a short Lenny Cravitz, a bass player, who worn a hat that covered most of his face, so I wasn't reminded of anyone, a keyboardist, who was a dead ringer for Beethoven, and a drummer, who looked a bit like a cool Urkle. They were all amazing!

I have never been to a jazz concert before. I don't know if it is normal for audience members at jazz concerts to get really into the music or not, but this audience certainly did. The whole audience seemed to be dancing in their seats. We were sitting on risers, which made the beat even more obvious. One thing I like about concerts is that due to the speakers they use and the acoustics in the room, you don't just hear the music, you feel the vibrations from it. It's like listening with your whole body. This audience was really into the performances. I loved watching the two older ladies in front of us. They nodded to each song in unison, except one was moving her head forward and backwards, and one was going side to side. Sometimes they would get really into a song and switch.

It was a lot of fun :) To top it all off, on the way home a biker passed us, and by biker I mean motorcycle gang biker guy. He has on a sleeveless leather jacket with the name of his gang on it (which was Booze-something) and had tattoos covering his arms. He looked like he could have been a very successful bouncer as he was huge. My favorite part of the outfit though was the electric blue converse sneakers he was wearing :) Nothing says "big, bad biker dude" like electric blue converse ;)