Walter Beasley opened up the show with his 'smooth jazz' saxophone style and he and the band were slamming. He even sang a few songs, he has a wonderful voice. He took the audience way back with "diamond in the back, sun roof top digging the scene with the gangster lean" He had the audience 'jammin'. Not only did he do a great performance, but the man also teaches at Berkley College.
2nd on the line-up was myself. I opened up my set with the Kenny Loggins song "Heart To Heart". During the performance I also included a "SWITCH" medley of our biggest hits. Kevin Dorsey, a 40 year singing buddy of mine did a duet with me on the Average White Band song "School Boy Crush". Kevin got to show off his range, he's definitely a bass singer, but showed off his higher register that people rarely get a chance to hear. We ended the show with another singer friend of mine, Pamela Olivia, we performed the song "Wonderful" which is a song that I recorded with Nikki Harris on the Jimmy Levine project. Folks were up out of their seats, dancing and singing the lyrics to the chorus. One funny thing on that song, I had a person that was pretty loud while I was singing during the show and so I decided to bring him up on stage while Pam & I performed "Wonderful", the audience loved it, he loved it, he was up dancing and singing and had a great time. I'm not sure if he will do something like that again, but he got his 5 minutes of fame. A few from the audience who had seen my show last year at the Jazz Informance said, "We really enjoyed you last year, but this year you took this show to another level". I'm glad they enjoyed my performance.
Ronnie Laws finished a show in New York, got on a plane and came down to close the "Not Just Jazz" performance. George Shaw fabulous trumpet player served as the Musical Director for Ronnie. Ronnie did some of his hits, "Every Generation", "Friends & Strangers" and of course "Always There". Since Ronnie ended up replacing Wilton Felder because of Wilton's medical condition, Ronnie also performed a couple of songs that Wilton would've performed. "As Long As I'm With You" was one of the songs that was written by George Shaw and recorded on one of Wilton's albums. I got to come out and sing that song with Ronnie & George. When Ronnie performed "Always There" he was doing some riffs back and forth with George on trumpet and called me out to join them with the riff's, great moment.
The comments for this Jazz Informance, 'Not Just Jazz' was that this performance was 'over the top', rated as one of the best ones yet. I know that's a cliche' but that's what the people are saying. I didn't put the words in their mouth :-)
Until next time - Phillip
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