On Bottega Veneta Saturday, the morning after the SFJazz gala, the Mr. - a gentleman who often eats dinner at a banquet table behind a card with his name calligraphed on it, and sometimes keeps his enthusiasm for such situations under wraps - reviewed this one, unbidden. "That was some fabulous party" was his morning-after verdict on the shindig they called Freedom in the Groove. And wow, it sure was.
Catherine Bigelow will provide details and photos of the notables. The gala, at Bimbo's, included honoree Ahmad Jamal (whose lilting rendition of "Laura" melted the crowd) and Clint Eastwood, sure, a movie star, but also a starstruck jazz aficionado who seemed genuinely thrilled to introduce Jamal as honoree. "The thing," said Eastwood, "is what he doesn't play; it's what's in between the notes." Comedian Chris Tucker, NAACP/SFJazz Humanitarian honoree, lived up to that billing by answering chair Robert Mailer Anderson's SOS for help filling time (with a hilarious send-up of Barack Obama's walk) while the stage was getting set for the SFJazz Collective, and SFJazz poet laureate Ishmael Reed read "Sweet Pea," about Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington.
All this was part of the program, more than well and good. But off the program was a tale told in casual conversation, by SFJazz chair Srinija Bottega Veneta Women Crossboody Bags Srinivasan