52nd City

World Saxophone Quartet @ the Bistro

Sometimes it's good to be simply lucky, as I happened to be when securing an eleventh-hour ticket to the World Saxophone Quartet's first performance at Jazz at the Bistro last night. Here for a four-night run, the group includes Lovejoy's Hamiet Bluiett, fellow co-foudner and STL expat Oliver Lake, and relatively newer members James Carter and Bruce Williams. The debut set of the weekend-long run was well-attended with a full house downstairs, along with old-school hipsters like Jorge Martinze and Tony Patti hugging the rail on the second floor, possibly the room's better seating option.

With Lake in town for the Black Artist Group symposia and workshops at Washington University, the group was able to string this series of dates together, bringing both new and old fans into the venue. In fact, it was amusing to hear one patron chatting up Blueitt between sets, noting a Westport Playhouse date in 1979. Though the fan was wound up about whether, or not, it was a '79 peformance, pressing the baritone sax palyer on which year was right, the unusually non-plussed Blueitt chirped, "I don't know, you tell me!"

Even though the group's set of just over an hour warmed up at points, there was a sense that this was just the initial show of many and that any of the rest of them could be the one that just goes off, levitating the veteran group and the audience to another place. Having had the fortune to catch Blueitt in five different musical settings, in four different venues, over to the past year-and-change, that possibility is always there. You can't predict when it's going to fly into outer space, but you know when you're in the middle of it.

Jazz shows and venues are rightly needled, at times, for pricing potential fans out of the house and the $25-30 ticket for this show is maybe a little uncomfortable for some. But it's not out of line for a ducat to see a legendary group, really, and last night's show indicated that this act's not content to play it safe for a supper-club room. They're there for business and bring a passionate set of standards and new material.

When you're in the presence of genius, yeah, "lucky" is the way to go. It's what you are, cost no longer a worry.