Washington, DC
November 17, 2006

Blues Alley, the intimate little jazz club in Georgetown is the perfect setting to present the David Sanborn Group.  Blues Alley generally books their acts for a four night block with two shows each night.   This allows the musician’s time to rest, feel comfortable and get all the kinks worked out in the sound.  I caught the show on the second night, so the band was just getting into their groove.

The David Sanborn group consisted of regular players Richard Patterson (bass) and Nick Moroch (guitar), but also two different faces in the band, Deron Johnson (keys) and Kendrick Scott (drums).  Both are very talented musicians who fit in well with the rest of the band.

He opened his set with “Proclamation” and then played the crowd favorite, “Maputo.”  People know and love that tune and immediately applauded it when they recognized the opening notes.  Blues Alley is small enough to inspire lots of audience interaction between the musicians and the audience and David Sanborn immediately connected with his audience.  He continued to play some of his more familiar and popular tunes, including “As We Speak,” and “Camel Island.”  David Sanborn is at his best when improvising and during “Camel Island,” he broke into several interesting riffs from some recognizable songs.  Both Deron Johnson and Kendrick Scott got a chance to show their stuff on this song, much to the audience’s appreciation. 

Nick Moroch opened “Lotus Blossom” with a fantastic guitar solo introduction.  This is one of David Sanborn’s beautiful ballads.  Between the sounds of Sanborn on the alto and Moroch playing softly on guitar, it’s so easy to get lost inside of this song.  The pace picked up after that with “Soul Serenade,” an oldie but goodie.  It’s been awhile since I’ve heard that one played live and sounded great. 

I’ve attended many David Sanborn shows over the years, and I think I know his music pretty well; however, he can still surprise me, which he did when playing the next tune.  The band began playing, and I had no idea what was coming until it was almost on top of me.  “Chicago Song,” always one of my favorites, sounded great, as did “Tin Tin Deo,” which had a bit of reworking.  Richard Patterson excels on the upright bass on this song, and Kendrick Scott showed his skill on drums/percussion.

David Sanborn ended his set with another crowd favorite, “The Dream.”  He plays this one often, and I suspect he likes playing it just as much as the crowd loves hearing it.    

- Mary Bentley