Dave Roberts
March 2001

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"I think on the other side we offer a service that you can’t find anywhere else. Either you come and eat in the restaurant and not go to the show, or you do the whole experience. And you do the dinner, the sushi, and then you go into the club, where you can also eat Japanese food and sushi, appetizers and such. And I think those two things have really combined to make Yoshi’s successful over the years."

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By Dave Roberts

AAJ: How has the business changed in the four years you’ve been at Yoshi’s and over your career in jazz?

ML: I do know it stays busy and gets busier. One thing that helped, not only Yoshi’s but perhaps the other clubs and the outdoor festivals, is the matinee program we started almost three and a half years ago. It just made families apt to come to Yoshi’s. I also think it’s cultivating new audiences for the future. So families come on Sunday at 2, and then hopefully the parents will get a babysitter and come back on Saturday night.

So that you see it’s not an intimidating music. It’s not something that you have to be a certain adept at music to understand and get into. We’ve really made it one where due to the cross-section of bookings, the food, the great press – we’re the best club in the Bay Area according to the San Francisco Chronicle – all those things have certainly helped to make it more of a destination, great entertainment, a great night out. Those sorts of things have certainly helped.

I also think the caliber of the artists have helped to keep the place in business. Granted, it’s been rough at certain times. But overall it has a lot to do with the matinee concerts, our student and senior discounts, and just the top-notch artists we’ve had come through. Those things just kept it going, kept the wave going.

In my career in jazz, I think the jam bands – Medeski, Martin and Woods, the Charlie Hunters of the world – really helped in a lot of ways to turn on young people to jazz. I’m 29 and we see people my age and younger all the time here. I think that bodes well for the future. I think people like Diana Krall have really helped jazz. Certain artists have done interesting records that have helped. I think the Ken Burns thing really helped.

One thing you’ll see this summer is all the free festivals around the country from the San Jose Festival to the Navy Pier in Chicago to you name them. There’s 55,000 jazz festivals. You will see an amazing, dramatic increase in the amount of people. And that bodes well for the future too. I think a lot of people now think, “I never thought to go to the St. Louis Jazz Festival, but now I will because I’ve heard so much about it and it sounds like a great time, and I might be able to meet chicks.” You know, those sorts of things. That all really helps, and it bodes well for the future.

AAJ: Have there been any highlights that stand out in your four years here?

ML: Musically? Yeah, when we had the Jazz Passengers with Debbie Harry here it was great. We did a Pat Metheny Trio show. One thing that was very interesting was the first Bobby Short and his Orchestra shows that we did for Valentine’s Day a couple years ago. When we had John Zorn’s Masada here it was a highlight. I also think all the McCoy Tyner shows we’ve done, the residencies we’ve done. We’ve put together exclusive bands with Cedar Walton and Milt Jackson. I’m just looking at all the photos here. It’s non-stop.

Ottmar Liebart’s performed here, which was great. And the reason I say that is because it brought in a new audience to Yoshi’s. I think we’ve done great with a lot of the cutting-edge Cuban bands, like Maraca. Irakere we’ve done exceptionally with. And I don’t mean business-wise, I just mean in terms of the vibe and the buzz we’re able to create in the Bay Area.

But what I think’s amazing about a place like Yoshi’s is for four years we’ve been able to consistently bring in Shirley Horn, Ahmad Jamal, Pharaoh Sanders, Jimmy Smith, Arturo Sandoval, and those artists that, without a place like this, I don’t know how well they would be doing professionally as musicians. I think Yoshi’s really helps them in the Bay Area. And it helps them sell CDs and keep going.

I’m just again looking at all the photos. Medeski, Martin and Wood were great shows. Like I said, it keeps going and going and going and going.

AAJ: I see these two guys [pointing to photos of David Benoit and John Butler, who will be performing at Yoshi’s the fourth and fifth weeks of March, respectively.] Are you guys going contemporary?

ML: We like to keep it fresh. We get a lot of people who like to hear smooth jazz. We don’t do Rick Braun, but we do David Benoit and Jonathan Butler. We do the Yellowjackets, which they kind of fit in there a little bit, Keiko Matsui, Hiroshima have performed here. If we think we can do well with people, we’ll bring them in, definitely.

AAJ: I guess there’s a fear from some of the more mainstream artists that these contemporary guys are going to push them out, and the whole thing gets diluted.

ML: Well, you can tell those people that without Jonathan Butler and David Benoit selling out all their shows, it’s tough to bring in the mainstream artists that are going to lose money. It pays for those other artists that we hope will be the artists of the future. Russell Malone, for one, while he’s a great guitar player, doesn’t sell a lot of tickets. And in order for us to do three nights with Russell Malone, we have to do Jonathan Butler, we have to do David Benoit. We have to bring in Nancy Wilson in order to pay for those other artists.

Roy Hargrove, Josh Redman, Christian McBride. Those artists have to be able to do six nights like Milt Jackson did, like Cedar Walton can do, like Branford Marsalis can do. Those artists have to be the ones in the future that you will write about, that the radio stations will play, that will get big articles in the [San Francisco Chronicle’s] pink section, that will bring 3600 people down here. Those artists have to be subsidized at this point in their careers by guys like Jonathan Butler. I wish I could book Russell Malone for six nights and he’d sell 3600 tickets – but he can’t do it. But we have to give him the opportunity to establish his own name in the Bay Area for the future.

Because it’s not about today – it’s about 35 years from now. I feel personally obligated to help these guys and these artists and these women be successful for 50 years. They have to be 80 years old coming in here and playing and being “The Legends Of ….” And we have all these guys that 40 years from now no one will know, who now are extremely popular and mainstream. That’s the only way we can do it. It’s the only way the genre will survive.

If Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, those artists, can’t consistently be popular and commercially successful here at Yoshi’s – and I know I’m speaking for every other jazz club in the country – it won’t happen, the genre will fall apart. There has to be stars. There has to be people who are interested in seeing them play. And I’m not talking Diana Krall, she’s beyond this now, she’s beyond Yoshi’s. But anybody in their 30s, Chris Potter, any of those guys, they have to be the ones that will keep it going in the future.

AAJ: In addition to Oscar Peterson in late August, any other big names coming this year?

ML: We’re doing the only North American appearance of the Gateway Trio with John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette in June. Bill Frisell‘s coming back with his new quartet, which is great. I think it might be Dr. John for New Year’s. The Gateway Trio in June and Oscar Peterson are the two highlights. This will be the 12th annual Eddie Moore Jazz Festival, which is put on by Jazz in Flight. They do more creative, avant-garde stuff. We’ll have creative musicians from all over the country and all over the world.

AAJ: It’s great that you often feature local artists on Monday nights.

ML: Yeah, and I think that’s really important. Dmitri Matheny’s local and we can do three nights. We really pride ourselves on doing local artists, artists that aren’t going to do that well ticket-wise. But we try very hard to incorporate women musicians/artists, world music, artists that are doing something very creative, that isn’t commercial or mainstream. And we try to do everything, we try to cover the spectrum of the music. And I think we do a very good job of that.

AAJ: So what’s the future hold for Yoshi’s?

ML: Keep on going. Just keep doing what we’re doing. New chairs, hopefully, in the club. I was interviewed by KQED a couple weeks ago about the whole Ken Burns thing and they said, “What is the most important thing for the future of jazz and of Yoshi’s?” And what I said to them, and what I still believe, is that people have to support local music. They have to support live music. If it’s not jazz, it’s at the Fillmore, it’s at high school, classical music, dance, theater, you gotta support the performing arts, regardless of what it is.

That’s what’s important, not only for Yoshi’s but for every presenting organization in the country. And we consider ourselves a presenting organization that has sushi, that makes Japanese food. And I think that’s what’s important, that’s what the future holds, is that people have to take more of an active interest in local music and in supporting their local venues, regardless of the genre. You have to not only buy CDs but you have to go out and support the music.

Because, I’ll tell ya, it’s not one of those things where if people stop doing it, it would survive on its own. It wouldn’t happen. People have to keep coming out. And if people keep coming out we’ll keep doing what we’re doing. If they stop coming out, I’ll have to find another jazz club to go to.

It’s a very precarious business, not only for us but for every genre of music. Theater groups in San Francisco are being evicted, dance troupes are being evicted. So it’s very important to go out and support cultural events and performing arts organizations.

AAJ: Anything else you want to say?

ML: Check out our Web site: Yoshis.com.

Dave Roberts has been a professional writer for more than a decade in newspapers, magazines and high-tech. He's a student of jazz piano, and writing a book, Tips From the Jazz Piano Pros, consisting of interviews with jazz pianists that focus on the art and craft of playing jazz piano.

If you are a professional jazz pianist or know of one who would be interested in participating, e-mail him at DaveRobertsJazz@cs.com. Also, if you are a Bay Area (or northern California) jazz musician, let him know what you're up to: CDs, shows, Web sites, etc.