The Fall Funk Jazz Tour feat. Doc Powell, The Jazz Crusaders & George Duke

The Fall Funk Jazz Tour featuring Doc Powell, The Jazz Crusaders, and George Duke.

To start the night off was Guitar Virtuoso Doc Powell, whose set was about an hour, but within that hour. He grooved from start to finish. He played one song off his first cd and said that he was dropped from the label, but nominated for a Grammy! Go figure! In between songs, he was talking about how he played guitar for Luther Vandross for thirteen years, and he went on to play one of Luther’s songs.  After that, he played ‘Inner City Blues’ (Marv-‘Makes me wanna holla..’) by Marvin Gaye. He just took his time and cruised through that song. Doc kept with the Marvin Gaye theme, performed and closed out his show with “What’s Going On” and introduced his band at the same time. People were dancing in the isles & Doc Powell dazzled the crowd for the amount of time he had at the end of the show. I was lucky enough to get a picture with the Famous Doc Powell.

The Jazz Crusaders featuring Wayne Henderson was the second act of the night. Now you must realize that Wayne Henderson may be in his late sixties-early seventies so he had a roadie help him on stage. The band was jamming, but you couldn’t tell he was showing his age by playing the trombone. He said right out, “I’m wearing this apron because we’re going to cook tonight!” and they did! While the band was still jamming, Wayne introduced the one and only Tom “Funkin’ fo Jamaica” Browne, which caught me by surprise, ’cause I was standing right next to him. Yeah I was! Anyway, Tom joined the jam and just ripped it. Wayne Introduced this young vocalist on stage and Tom went 1,2,3,4 and went straight into “Funkin for Jamaica” and from the first note the audience went bananas, and Tom just went to another level with this song, he just rocked it. Wayne came back on and told the story of how he, Joe Sample, Stix Hopper, Wilton Feldon, and other’s were sitting around one day talking about Texas is the “same ole feeling” and that
how the song was born and the music started and the audience was already singing the chorus “Keep on-Keep that same ole feeling”.

After that, the lights went dim, and Wayne started talking about a young man who grew up in the 4 4 (north side of Houston) and went on to become a jazz legend. Wayne introduced Ronnie Laws.  Ronnie came on stage and went right into “Friends and Strangers” and it sounded just like the album. Smooth and rich. I must admit – Ronnie had on this beautiful black Armani Suit! It flowed just like the way Ronnie was playing-smooth. After Ronnie took a breather, we jammed on “Always There” for a good seven to eight minutes. Then Wayne and Tom joined in for the closing song.

(Our Main Man Marv D. shares the spotlight with Jazz & Funk master George Duke! Photo courtesy of Marv D.))

The headliner for tonight’s jazz concert was none other than George Duke whose musical journey started with The Frank Zappa band to the new CD Dukey Treats. George stated after the opening song that he was going to take us on a musical journey but that was cut short cause of time constraints, but George made the best of it. George started out with one of his signature songs from the early eighties and let the band to their thing. After that George played a song off the Duke/Clarke album (forgot the name of the song (forgive me), then went into “Sweet Baby”, George let the band  kick it for a while during introductions of the band, his other keyboard player was just a tight as George, his drummer who had to be no more than 22,23 years old was off the hook, and never broke a sweat, trust me he never broke a sweat. George Invited four young men from T.S.U. (Texas Southern University) to play with him, 2 sax players, 1 trumpet player, and 1 trombone player, George said they didn’t get a chance to rehearse, he sent them the music and basically they winged it and they were all off the hook as they played songs off the new Dukey Treats cd, the audience gave them a standing Ovation, at that point I saw the future of jazz.

(George Duke throwin’ down at The Arena Theater in Houston, TX!! Photo courtesy of Marv D.)

George did the extended double murda remix of “Rhyme and Reason”, to the point audience members were yelling out “It’s ok George, take your time, just let it out, just let it out”. Then all of a sudden George says, “Where’s The Funk?” and hit the jam “Dukey Stick”. The audience went nuts!! And to end the evening, George did a medley of old school funk jams playing the Yamaha KX7 (if you happen to find one of these, they are very rare). He went from Dukey Stick to Atomic Dog to Thankyouforlettinmebemyelfagain, to James Brown’s Going To Take You Higher. Everybody was on their feet dancing & George went out into the audience and played right to the end…

After that, George went to the lobby to sign autographs, take pictures and have general conversations with the fans.