Chez Hanny is "a longstanding Jazz Salon in the historic Fillmore District." Laid out like a college flat, its bookshelves are filled with books of the oddest variety from Ellery Queen to Auden to pulp horror. The shelves are also lined with a pawn shop variety of odds and ends: a collection of the "Capitol Jazz Sessions," a picture of Woody Allen embracing a love doll, a mannequin hand, and above the fireplace mantle, image after image of the three muses. Chez Hanny is the Fillmore Street apartment of "Frank," Frank Hanny. Earlier today, Sunday, August 28th, Jacqui Naylor performed at Chez Hanny with her pianist Art Khu.
Naylor recently released a live album entitled EAST/WEST. In this two disc set, one disc was recorded at Birdland (on the East coast) and the other at Yoshi's (on the West coast). I've been listening to EAST/WEST non-stop for four days now: at the office, in the car, while at home...
"Live East," the first disk, is proficient and technical. It is laced with perfections that indicate Jacqui Naylor's gifts. But Live East's cool proficiencies and almost intellectual aloofness--songs that put other such vocalists to shame--pale in comparison to the moody, emotional aesthetics of Naylor's "Live West," the second disk.
My take on East was not far off the mark based on my conversations with Art Khu. While, Khu, (clearly a perfectionist) did get the sound right at Birdland for East, he said there were technical struggles in getting the sound and recording set up properly. He felt there may have been evidence of that tension in East. I told him there were no flaws in East, it just wasn't as good as West and he agreed. East had to be assembled from two or three nights of performances while West was done, essentially, in one evening. He also mentioned that the band on East played perfectly but lacked the long term synergy and artistry that results from the chemistry possessed by the band on West. I was pleased to have my intuitions about the collection reinforced.
It is based on the expressiveness of "Live West" that I sought out an opportunity to see Naylor live. If I was going to write about Naylor's EAST/WEST a "live" album, I thought I should actually see her live in order to be able to adequately assess the live recordings. Serendipitously, the day I looked for such a performance, Friday, August 26th, I found a scheduled performance in my own San Francisco backyard at Chez Hanny on the following Sunday.
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