(Click on the pic from Ariel Soto to go to a slideshow of flicks from last night's gala.)
Evidently, 82-year-old jazz drummer Roy Haynes tore up the Grand Opening of Yoshi's in the Fillmore last night. We have pics, but the Merc has the wisdom:
So there was a lot of symbolism involved in having Haynes up there: The man of eternal youth - who undoubtedly played at the old Bop City on Fillmore, decades ago, as did Miles and Parker and Coltrane (all ex-bandmates of Haynes') - was initiating the 417-seat club in the Western Addition with his all-star group (Kenny Garrett; Ravi Coltrane, son of the above; Gary Burton, and more). Eternal youth breeds and signifies rebirth; that was the theme of the night.The 28,000-square-foot Yoshi's San Francisco is part of a $72 million jazz-and-condos cultural complex, known as the Fillmore Heritage Center, which fills a chunk of a square block just south of Geary Boulevard in the historically African-American and Japanese district.
Of course, no opening is complete without the requisite shit-talking. SFist has a cool thread on whether or not Yoshi's should've been hip-hop if they wanted to re-claim the mantle of "blackness" in the Fillmore district. Whaaaaatever. —DAVID DOWNS
When I was a kid and teenager Jimbo's Bop City was on Post Street several doors down from the Post Street Barber Shop that was owned by Miss Tyler A. Allen. Miss Allen was a cousin of Joe "The Jet" Perry, the Hall of Fame halfback who played for the San Francisco 49ers. The shop's customers included Willie Mays, Willie Kirkland, Leon Wagner and the Harlem Globetrotters whenever they came to town.
The great Charles Mingus punched out one of my uncles one night at Bop City. My uncle said that he deserved it because he had had too much to drink and was running his mouth too loudly. Mingus asked him to be quiet and he told Mingus to kiss him where the sun didn't shine. The next thing he knew he was getting up off of the floor. I inherited his cd collection when he died and it contained, among other things, everything that Mingus had ever recorded and had been released on cds.
My late father said that during the 1940s he used to regularly see famous jazz musicians walking around the Fillmore. I'm glad the music has come back. Joe Alioto and other supporters of the Negro Removal Program (aka Redevelopment) were not entirely triumphant.
Posted at: November 29, 2007 9:24 PM