Caught a gig last night at the Blue Jay Jazz Festival in the San Bernardino Mountains, where I hope to soon base my career and home. The band was a maybe-one-shot (hopefully not) called Hues of Blues, led by Bill Cunliffe on the Roland VK-1, a keyboard that *perfectly* emulates the sound of a Hammond B-3 right down to the pedals and Leslie. Joining him on this night were Ron Eschete on his magical 7-string guitar, Joe LaBarbera on drums, the incredible Jeff Clayton on alto, and *THE* West Coast trombonist to watch for in the next few years: 19-year-old Isaac Smith of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra.

What a monster ensemble this was; all of these cats are top-rung. This was the biggest crowd the Blue Jay festival has ever seen, probably a thousand people. (All you high-capacity fest-goers, keep in mind that this one is held in the back parking lot of the Thrifty drug store. It's Podunk in the mountains, for Pete's sake.) Many of the attenders had heard word of the great performance here by Cunliffe and Holly Hofmann a couple of weeks ago; many more had caught Cunliffe and Clayton at the University of Redlands a while back and came up the hill to catch the expanded act.

They ran the gamut: a beautiful free-form "Misty" with Clayton in the lead, a ten-minute romp through "Rockin' In Rhythm", a Horace Silver tune the title of which I can't remember, "One O'Clock Jump", the whole works. Eschete put his seventh string to good use in a hilarious solo on "Rockin'..." quoting everything that fit, or didn't fit, the changes. After that one performance he just might be my favorite jazz guitarist. He certainly enjoys himself on the bandstand; he was rockin' like Grandma on the porch the whole time. Smith has a tone like Black Forest cake on trombone: rich, warm, slightly sweet and still bell-clear. He's a tall, lanky kid with tiny dreadlocks and a lightning slide arm that's tempered by exquisite taste in note selection.

I was especially fascinated by LaBarbera and the utter ease with which he plays. I sat to his dead left and had a straight view of his hands. He did an energetic-sounding extended solo on "1:00" and didn't even break a sweat. Through it all Cunliffe held down the bass end with the pedals and chugged along emulating Jack McDuff, Larry Young and the guy at Michelle Kwan's training rink down the street. Possibly the best show I've seen all year. Man, oh, man, these guys were hot! Good thing, too, 'cause by the time the evening wrapped up it was as cold as a witch's nose up the hill.