Recap of The Jazz Mafia 10 Year Anniversary Show by Harley Howard

More than 800 loving fans, friends, family, and fellow artists, 50 musicians, 6 bands, Lyrics Born, Lateef, 8 video cameras, 48 Channel Multi-track recording and non-stop live music from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. made for perhaps Jazz Mafia's most memorable night in SF yet...

Posted on 11/16/2010

Adam has been busier and busier the past few weeks arranging for various
shows, I’ll try to help out by offering a review of the 10 Year
Anniversary Party this past Saturday, November 13, at The Mezzanine in San
Francisco.

I’ve been a fan of the JM since before they officially existed, when they
were a bunch of musicians jamming out downstairs in North Beach back in
the late 1900s! I’ve kept my eye on them since then, and have seen many of
their highs and lows over the past decade. I was granted all access to the
show as well as the VIP pre-party (as a roadie basically–I’m not really a
professional journalist, but more like a manual laborer, as you can
probably already tell by my writing style.)

There were many highlights from that historic night–too many to list
here, but some of my favorites were:

- the fact that JM included a great cross section of the music they’ve
been known for, as well as some new things that I’d never even heard of.
The JM String Quartet/Trombone set at the VIP party was completely
unexpected and seemed to go over well, especially considering it was
performed all acoustic in a 1,000-person venue. Each band seemed to take
pride in doing what they would normally do, and were not trying to tailor
their set to a “Weekend party crowd” too much—a possibilityI was a bit
wary might happen..

- Crystal Monee’s set was a great example of the contrast of styles; most
of it was subdued, tasteful, yet incredibly dynamic. It was by far the
biggest crowd I’ve seen Crystal perform for, and she handled it like a
walk in the park! The audience of already around 500, reacted with great
enthusiasm and respect.

Joe Bagale’s band followed Crystal, and focused on revisiting the
groove-oriented tunes from Joe’s first album, arranged for a larger band
than he’s been working with the past few years; it was another great
contrast from Crystal and Spaceheater’s sets.

- Spaceheater’s Blast Furnace played earlier in the night, and came out
hitting hard. The addition of Seneca as a vocalist on some of the songs
was a new sound for me, and it was a perfect fit. Immediately after
Spaceheater’s incredibly melodic and rhythmic set, Brass Mafia stormed the
dance floor marching around blasting their SF style of Marching Band/Funk
music. As they weaved through the crowd I couldn’t find one person who
wasn’t smiling as the band approached. It was a great way to get the vibe
of the night going in an “anything can happen” direction. Things got even
crazier when Shotgun Wedding Quintet took the stage and drove the audience
through an incredibly eclectic set that often sounded very unlike
traditional Hip-Hop yet somehow carried on the tradition at the same time.
The addition of turntablist Teeko as a guest brought a new sound to the
band that was a new and fresh approach.

- JM Co-founder Dublin introduced a new multimedia technology known as
“Hijack the band,” which I was very skeptical at first of because it
required (or rather encouraged) audience members to get out their phones
and login to www.hijacktheband.com and play along with an interactive
game. Well, much to my surprise it was actually really fun, and I saw
hundreds of different people’s names who were projecting various JM
related trivia onto the screen, as well as audience suggestions for
freestyle topics and other interactive musician/crowd business. I’d like
to see them do more with this at maybe a smaller club or a less action
packed-night to use it even more.

- Of course one of the main reasons for the big crowd was the reunion of
one of the most talked -bout Bay Area underground Duos of all time,
LATYRX. The JM has been working with many well-known Hip-Hop artists for
years,including many recordings and performances with Lyrics Born, (who is
one half of Latyrx) but how they got Lateef (the other half) and LB to
reunite and perform these mostly incredibly sophisticated and beautiful
rare gems was not explained. But this didn’t seem to matter because
everyone was having such a great time hearing this treat. . First the
Realistic Orchestra took the stage, played a few of their favorite songs
(“Mountain Man” and a song featuring Dublin which I think is called
“Perfect Ending.” Then they were joined by a string section and more
rhythm section players, and Lyrics Born came out to a deafening noise from
the crowd. They rocked two songs from LB (“Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda” from
his new album and “Over You” which is one of my favorites produced by DJ
Shadow. Crystal Monee sounded incredible on Over You! Next Lateef joined
the band for a solo song and performed “Don’t Stop” from his record with
Chief Xcel. By this point it was well past midnight and the crowd at the
Mezzanine was almost to capacity, over 800, and it felt like more. LB came
back out onstage to join Lateef as they started “Lady Don’t Tekno” and the
audience FREAKED OUT. It’s very rare to see these two emcees perform
together, and I’ve only seen them do a few songs together at the most when
Lateef comes to an LB show in the Bay. Many people seemed to sense how
special it was to see this duo reunited and performing a set of many of
their most talked about songs. For the next half hour the full orchestra
backed Latyrx on an incredibly diverse set of music from two of the Bay
Area’s true Hip-Hop heavyweights. For me, hearing the songs “Storm
Warning” and “Say That” orchestrated with a 30-piece band was one of the
musical highlights of my life. Once again, I was impressed that the set
involved so much more than party music, something I’d like to see more
often in live hip-hop shows these days.

When the Latyrx set climaxed with “Last Trumpet,” the audience went nuts
and there were many smiles and hugs on stage.

Following the Latyrx set there was an all-star freestyle jam backed by
Supertaster featuring many familiar faces in the Bay Area Hip-Hop scene
including: Soulati and Infinite (Felonious), Seneca, Dublin, Orukusaki,
Ryan Greene and many others. The night ended with everyone asking where
the afterparty was gonna be,. I’m not sure where it ended up but 6 hours
of non-stop music left me completely satisfied, and I drove home with the
window down because the car had been broken into (I love 6th Street!)

Thanks for reading!
HH