By K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
60-second Review
Joey DeFrancesco and The People at St. Cecilia Music Center, Thursday, Feb. 7.
Joey DeFrancesco is known for his masterful play on the Hammond B3 organ, whether it is playing jazz or one of his pop/soul side projects, as when he recently aided Van Morrison on a project. But in a 90-minute, seven-tune set with his jazz quartet, The People, on Thursday, he showed he loves to play around and play with the audience too.
The result was, mimicking a recent pop song whose name I mercifully forget: a little bit of jazz in my life, a little bit of funk by my side, a little bit of blues is all I need, a little bit of fun is what I see.
Bottom line: Joey D and the boys — saxophonist Troy Roberts, guitarist Dan Wilson and drummer Michael Ode — had the audience feeling warm, cozy and playing along on a cold, icy winter night in West Michigan. Who could ask for anything more?
The set began with three tunes off of The People’s Grammy-nominated 2017 release “Project Freedom”, warming up the crowd and their instruments with “Better than Yesterday”, getting the audience fully into it with the funky sounding “The Unifer” and then flowing softly into the almost melancholy “Project Freedom” — a tune on which both Wilson and Roberts gave great improv solos that almost matched Joey’s.
Joey then took a short diversion off the keyboards, to his vocal and trumpet talents, when he said the band was going to “cool it down a bit” with Neil Sedaka’s “I Found my World in You” before returning to Project Freedom and getting the crowd back bouncing with “Stand Up”.
My favorite tune of the show, ending the initial set, was the rousing blues number — “Down in the Alley” (I think …) — on which everybody had a chance to jam, but Wilson really went off on the guitar.
The final tune, in encore, was “Trip Mode” off Joey’s 2015 release of the same name.
And then everybody went back to real life and the cold, but with a smile on their face.
May I have more, please?
After Joey DeFrancesco the final Jazz Series concert will be Benny Green Trio & Veronica Swift on March 7. Tickets for jazz series concerts range from $35-$45.
St. Cecilia Music Center is located at 24 Ransom NE, Grand Rapids. For tickets or more information call 616-459-2224 or visit scmc-online.org.
