Hear This

Known variously as "Swing Street," "Bebop Alley," or simply "The Street," a storied stretch of New York's 52nd Street once teemed with the nation's premier jazz hot spots. During the 1930s and '40s, legendary nightclubs like the Onyx, the Famous Door, and the Three Deuces hosted all-night jams by jazz revolutionaries, from big-band leaders Duke Ellington and Count Basie to fiery beboppers Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. "52nd Street was such an influential place in an influential period," says popular tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano on the liner notes to his Grammy-winning album 52nd Street Themes. "It brought so many styles together, and that's what I'm always trying to do."

Jimmy Katz

Details

Thursday through Saturday, Sept. 13-15, at 8 and 10 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 16, at 2 and 8 p.m.

Tickets are $18-22 (the Sunday matinee is $5 for kids, $10 per adult with one kid, and $18 general)

(510) 238-9200

Yoshi's, 510 Embarcadero West (in Jack London Square), Oakland

Related Content

• Awkward! The Top Five Most Uncomfortable Grammy Moments
  February 10, 2012
• Jazz for Kids
  September 14, 2011
• Meet Linda Chorney, the Unknown Singer-Songwriter Who Got a Grammy Nomination
  February 10, 2012
• Adele's Grammy Performance: A Reminder of the Scary Power of an Honest, Gorgeous Song
  February 13, 2012
• On the 20th Anniversary of Miles Davis' Death, Five Funny Stories About Him You Maybe Shouldn't Believe
  September 28, 2011

More About

• Joe Lovano
• Paul Motian
• John Scofield
• Big Band and Swing
• Bebop

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

From his work in the '80s and early '90s with small combos led by boundary-pushers Paul Motian and John Scofield to his successful career as a solo artist and group leader in more recent years, Lovano has distinguished himself as a broad-minded jazz composer and improviser of depth, maturity, and inventiveness. For 52nd Street Themes, he assembled a nonet of seasoned players (among them pianist John Hicks, drummer Lewis Nash, and alto saxophonist Steve Slagle) and a book of classic tunes (by Billy Strayhorn, Tadd Dameron, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis) freshly arranged by old-school saxophonist Willie "Face" Smith. Unlike many similar tributes to the swing and bop eras that put the Street on the map, Lovano's effort thoroughly convinces. Though his tunes swing conventionally, there's an openness to the arrangements that gives the music a less codified or museumlike feel than that of, say, the stuffy Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Lovano's stunning evocations do more than merely preserve the songs and styles of jazz past; they bring them back to life.