Fourplay & Boney James @ the Hollywood Bowl

The Hollywood Bowl has always been an amazing venue since it opened in 1922; it’s been the stage for some of the world’s greatest musicians, including the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, and Igor Stravinsky (think Rite of Spring).

The last time I was at the Hollywood Bowl was in August 2008 to see Eric Idle’s (Monty Python!) Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy), featuring tunes from the film “Life of Brian.” Absolutely hilarious.

But anyways, I got a chance to visit the Bowl again yesterday to check out the Boney James/Fourplay show. I remember reading an article about Fourplay in Downbeat Magazine, so I was super curious to see how’d they sound. As for Boney James, I’d never really heard of him before. :)

I dunno about you, but when I think of the name Fourplay, I think of a bunch of silly young guys straight out of college. (I mean come on, no one really wants to be seen showing enthusiasm for the band with an “I love Fourplay!” It could be taken the wrong way.) So I was pretty surprised to see four very serious-looking middle-aged men walk out on stage dressed in white (except for the bass player, who was wearing orange; maybe he didn’t get the memo?). Fourplay was pretty much any big band’s basic rhythm section — Bob James on piano, Nathan East on bass (he also does “vocals,” which comes out as this funny mumble/scat thing), Larry Carlton on guitar, and Harvey Mason on drumset. These guys were extremely talented — they played everything from funk to latin, making every member in the audience (it was pretty much a full house, by the way, and the Bowl seats a little over 17,000 people) bob their heads in unison. Including me, of course. What I loved the most about Fourplay was the way they offered nearly every flavor of jazz, making it absolutely impossible to not like at least a bit of their program, and also making it absolutely impossible for me to decide on a favorite song. But lucky for me, I left the Bowl with a new Fourplay CD (hooray), Energy, and here are my three new favorites:

1…Argentina (especially because the beginning sounds a lot like one of my favorite jazz standards, My Romance)

2…Ultra Light

3…Fortune Teller

If you listen to these recordings (or if you can catch them live), it’s completely obvious that they’ve been together since 1990. Either that, or they’re psychic. Because while Bob James is cranking out some amazing lick on the piano, Harvey Mason follows him perfectly on the drums, as if he knows exactly what he’s going to play. And yes, these are very important qualities in any jazz musician, but Fourplay does it so well that there has to be some psychic thing going on.

In contrast to what I said about Fourplay offering a mix of different flavors, Boney James was quite the opposite; in James’s case, it was more “here’s-one-flavor-and-we-hope-you-like-it.” But don’t get me wrong, Boney James is an absolutely spectacular smooth jazz saxophone player; it was just that the sound of the saxophone sounded so studio-perfect that I really couldn’t tell if he was actually playing. Looking back at the full crowd, though, I could tell that James had a pretty big fan base (I believe at some point, the audience members in the rear stood up and swayed to a chant of “Go Boney, Go Boney!”).

But I have to tell you, I was pretty exhausted just watching him perform. Whether he was really hyped on caffeine or had made a goal to visit every corner of the Bowl’s stage (they had to let out the catwalk for him at least twice) I’m not sure, but I give props to whoever was working the lights for being able to catch up with him. What made me even more exhausted, however, was struggling to tell the difference between his tunes. Maybe it was just the fact that his warm-up band was so incredibly amazing.

James played a few tunes from his new album, Send One Your Love, what he calls his “ultimate make-out CD.” Especially because “the saxophone is such a sexy instrument.” For those die-hard smooth jazz fans: by all means, go check out Boney James.

But for those like me who are quite the opposite, I suggest checking out Fourplay.

If you’re all psyched about the Hollywood Bowl now, be sure to check out the upcoming show on August 7th and 8th: Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang (if you watched the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he played the theme from the Yellow River Cantaba with 7-year-old Li Muzi in the opening ceremony). I definitely want to see what happens when you mix these two together.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Autumn Leaves/Keith Jarett/At the Blue Note

Tagged as: Boney James, Fourplay, Hollywood Bowl, jazz, smooth jazz