The Bay Area jazz scene, often lethargic if not moribund, picked up in the summer months with some great performances that also stretched the envelope. At Yoshi’s, David Murray played his usual spectacular saxophone, but in the context of a jazz plus Guadeloupean gwo-ka drums unit. Also at Yoshi’s, saxophonist James Carter was exceptional playing the music of Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. Jazz seniors, the Heath Brothers, performed at a benefit for Berkeley’s Jazzschool and erased all questions of age with the diamond-like brilliance of their playing. Bassist Percy Heath, Tuskegee Airman and last surviving member of the Modern Jazz Quartet, played a pizzicato cello version of Charlie Parker’s Yardbird Suite that was as accomplished as Rostropovich and as rollicking as Elmer Snowden.
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