I haven’t been to an old folks’ show in a minute, but it turns out they’re the best ones. The rush for seating aside (this was at the Denver Botanic Gardens, where you’re apparently allowed to line up as early as you please; for the average attendee, approximate age one hundred and seven, this was apparently 2pm, right after Ellen), they’re the ideal audience; shriveled enough to minimize their footprint and passed out off half a glass of that strong chablis, twenty minutes into the show you and the grandchildren might well be the only living audience members.

That’s even more significant than it seems, as this thing went for a solid two and a half hours (or something like that, this was over a month ago - impressively long, to be sure). But for that first twenty minutes, watch out - the geezers gyrated wildly, either dancing or trying to get Gertrude’s attention from across the venue. For some, the show may have contained an element of youthful nostalgia, although Hancock’s only hits came from his least-acclaimed albums. To be honest, I’m really not sure when something like Head Hunters entered the jazz canon; moreover, I’m still less sure of how the jazz canon (Coltrane, Davis, the list could go on) and its five or so entries is transmitted to each successive generation. A college roommate of mine had a playlist of what he called studying jazz; as best as I could tell, this meant the most famous jazz songs recorded by white people. Because I’ll never miss an opportunity to remind people of how shit the medium is, it should be noted that he was also an a cappella enthusiast; for all other occasions (waking up, cookin’, and good god, I hope partying), the discography of the Virginia Gentlemen was evidently sufficient.

(After a flaming, cartwheeling turn through the air, the train lands on a new set of rails; the author considers but chooses not to mention that writing itself can be a lot like jazz, meandering and improvised)

There’s a point that I actually wanted to make, and it’s this: on a musical level, I haven’t enjoyed a show like I did Herbie’s in quite a long time. As someone incapable of leaving setlist.fm unread before a show, it was immensely refreshing to have it be entirely useless. Sure, every 20 or 30 minutes we’d have 16 bars of a recognizable theme from something like Cantaloupe Island, but in-between there was no telling where things would go. Through some combination of a good memory and a short attention span, my experience at lesser concerts (typically, something like Beach House that’s doomed to overstay its welcome regardless) inevitably trends towards a sort of checklist function: acutely aware of what has been played, what remains, and an approximate estimate of when I can go and do something else. Not so here; (1) I’m of the order of Herbie Hancock fan that can tell you whether Chameleon has been played and little more, and (2) I was having an incredible time. Musicians were taking solos, the weather was pleasant, and there was the perpetual (unrealized) possibility that one of the neighboring fogies would take pity on the young folks and proffer some leftover wine. Herbie Hancock, younger than most of the audience but long dead of dysentery by 19th century standards, turned out to be a right old Pat Sajak on the microphone, cracking wise and self-deprecating and eventually naming his bandmates (sometime before the introduction, I was excited to realize that the band included Terrace Martin; knowing he can score gigs like this only makes it stranger that he’d waste his time co-signing works that treat jazz more as a marketing tactic than an artform, like To Pim- *signal cuts out*).

In summation:

1. Old people know how to party

2. The only shows worth seeing anymore are ultra high production value canon stuff and NBA Youngboy

3. Herbie Hancock looks 80 up close and 30 from afar

4. Shouts out the legend McCoy Tyner

5. These here photos are courtesy of my pal Adrienne, who accompanied me to the show; I think my pal Adrienne would be a great name for a photographer, but she goes by Nosferatune

6. Denver Botanic Gardens is the absolute spot for seeing live music; I don’t mind having missed Garrison Keillor or Jose Gonzalez, but I’ll be mad forever that Randy Newman couldn’t find it within himself to slip me a press pass