Kane Mathis

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Well, I remember my first real jazz show. I grew up near Chicago, so I went to the Jazz Showcase very often during the Blackstone Hotel years. The Jazz Showcase was in residence at the Blackstone Hotel for 14 years, from 1981 to 1995. The featured acts were always the A-list of touring Jazz artists, and there was a critical emergence of what would become the sound of 90s jazz, which I always think of as a great assimilation of all that had come before. Because the room was small and the names were big, performers usually held down a week-long residency from Tuesday to Sunday, often playing multiple sets a night. When I was in high school playing guitar in the Jazz band, my friends and I would always try to see shows at the Jazz Showcase whenever we could because you did not have to be 21 to get in, and my first visit was in November 1992; I don't remember the exact date, but the band was Ahmad Jamal with Yoron Israel on drums and John Heard on bass. It was an incredibly powerful show. One of the amazing things about it was that, as a trio, Ahmad's playing was incredibly exposed, and he just kept coming up with new ideas, and the place that he was pulling from seemed to be endless, and his musicality was somehow both playful and incredibly serious. I also remember thinking that Jazz, in the kinds of rooms it was created in (rooms like this one I was in) was louder than I thought it would be, and at the Jazz Showcase they did not mic drums or bass; bass would use an amp. Now, over 30 years later it is incredible how much of a reference point that concert still is. I don't remember all the pieces or everything about the performance, but I do remember the feeling; it was a structured, timeless weightlessness the group conjured. After that concert, I went all the time and had some great experiences like sitting 5 ft from Al Foster's hi-hats, hugging Elvin Jones after his band's early set, and talking to Joe Pass about guitar in the lobby between sets. To this day, I cannot figure out how it happened that I was just sitting with Joe Pass, his friend, and his manager, and no one else while Joe was on break; it just happened. During that time, I also saw Terance Blanchard play his 'Simply Stated' record, and I saw Joe Henderson during the time of his Billy Strayhorn tribute. One of the fun things about the Jazz Showcase was that, since the room was small, they would really put seats anywhere they could, and more than a few times I was on the stage where the drummer would often set up, and that's what got me my unique proximity to Al Foster's playing. Thanks to those stage seats I was once installed right next to Jack McDuffs leslie cabinet and for another show was basically behind Jack DeJohnette's drum kit. Those were the 'bad seats', incredible.

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