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Yoshi's Feature in SF Chronicle


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Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=music

A dozen years ago, when Yoshi's was, in the words of its co-owner and namesake Yoshie Akiba, "a hideaway jazz club" nestled among private homes in Oakland's leafy Rockridge neighborhood, few would have expected that the place would come to bear the weight of the jazz world on its shoulders.

Back then, jazz fans could find internationally known acts in San Francisco at Kimball's and in the East Bay at Kimball's East and Koncepts Cultural Gallery, in addition to Yoshi's.

Now, only Yoshi's is left standing. And far from buckling under the responsibility, it's thriving. And it has a big birthday to celebrate: 10 years at its current location in Jack London Square, a part of Oakland's waterfront that used to be seedy and empty after dark, but now has some nightlife -- thanks in large measure to Yoshi's.

"Yoshi's is one of the best jazz clubs in the world," says Kenny Burrell, the guitar master who celebrated his 75th birthday with a special concert at the club last summer. "They have the best sound system, the best equipment, and they take extra effort to present the music to the public in the best possible way."

Practically every major jazz artist has played Yoshi's. That was true at the former location, but there you couldn't honestly claim -- as fun and intimate as the club was -- that the sound quality was up to the caliber of the music being performed. That situation was rectified 10 years ago when Akiba and co-owner Kaz Kajimura brought in sound designer Tom Schindler with Charles Salter Associates and architect Hiroshi Morimoto to create an acoustically pure room with state-of-the-art engineering and not a bad seat in the 310-capacity house.

It cost millions of dollars, but no one's complaining.

"Our sound always sounds good at Yoshi's," says saxophonist Branford Marsalis, a frequent performer at the club. "I don't have any people complaining they couldn't hear an instrument. ... I dig the place. I have a great time every time I play there."

Among the other jazz stars who have availed themselves of the exquisite sound and ambience are Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, Bill Frisell, Chucho Valdés, John Zorn, Poncho Sanchez, Marian McPartland, Bud Shank, Woody Allen, Stanley Turrentine, Freddie Hubbard, Pat Metheny, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Elvin Jones, John Scofield, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Cecil Taylor ... the list goes on.

Some of those artists are capable of filling 3,000-seat halls, yet they still come to Yoshi's. "This was one of the first clubs Diana Krall played in the U.S.," says Peter Williams, who, as artistic director, has booked acts into Yoshi's since 1999. Pianist-singer Krall, one of the top-selling acts in jazz, has been back to Yoshi's three times and she's returning again June 8-9. "She likes it here," Williams says.

"We had the Gary Burton Quartet with Pat Metheny here last summer. Pat's a superstar. He could easily have played Zellerbach. But they wanted to do it here.

"Oscar Peterson's been here three times since I've been here. ... Yoshi's carries a lot of magic."

Writing on his Web site after playing at Yoshi's in 2001, Peterson -- arguably the greatest living jazz pianist -- said, "There are jazz clubs and then there are JAZZ CLUBS! Having played most of the major such places in the world, in my view, Yoshi's, in Oakland, California, epitomizes what a serious jazz club should be."

When Yoshi's and Oakland were flirting with each other over consummating a redevelopment deal for Jack London Square, not everyone thought this civic-private partnership was a good idea. At stake was $3 million in public funds.

"The vote went 5-4 to give Yoshi's the money," says Ignacio De La Fuente, the Oakland City Council president who at the time of the vote was a councilmember. "I had five votes, and (then-Mayor) Elihu (Harris) was against it."

De La Fuente says it made sense to work with Yoshi's. "They had been an Oakland institution for a long time, and they needed to find a new home," he says. "We were trying to revitalize the waterfront and trying to attract restaurants and businesses. Yoshi's was a venue that I thought would attract people by providing entertainment.

"Now, not only is Yoshi's paying the money back to the city, but the people they've brought to the area are spending money."

They're spending even more since last year, when Yoshi's took another major step. It hired chef Shotaro "Sho" Kamio, the culinary master who had earned worshipful reviews for his San Francisco restaurant Ozuma. His inspired raw and cooked seafood creations go far beyond even the most creative sushi rolls being served around the bay. Now it can be said that the restaurant is operating at the same lofty level as the jazz club.

"I love the new restaurant," says Marsalis. "I had the night off once when we were playing there, and I went there just to eat. I'll go in early and meet some friends there and order a bunch of good wine and food and put it all on the credit card."

To celebrate the club's 10th birthday as an institution in Jack London Square, a number of promotions are planned (see accompanying story), including Monday's release of a 10-song CD compilation of songs performed live at Yoshi's.

The club's staffers had better take the time to enjoy themselves, because starting very soon they're going to get busy. Extremely busy. That's because Yoshi's, with financial help from the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, will be opening a second jazz club and restaurant in the Fillmore neighborhood in the fall. (See accompanying story.) It's going to be a $10 million gamble.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed for them," says Orrin Keepnews, the 84-year-old godfather of jazz record production. He's seen more than enough jazz clubs come and go, and in recent years, most of them go. "Over the years it takes a sort of pessimistic view of what you can depend on the jazz audience for."

Yet, he's surprised that San Francisco has gone so long without a major-league club -- it's been 12 years since Kimball's closed. "Considering how much success Randall Kline has had with the San Francisco Jazz Festival, it's quite remarkable that there hasn't been an honest-to-God jazz room in San Francisco," Keepnews says.

But if anyone can pull it off, Keepnews thinks Yoshi's can. "This club has consistently been in a class by itself," he says.

Yoshi's will get its chance, but it won't likely be a walk. Yoshi's' Williams knows how tough the business is.

"There are so many sources for people to be entertained these days," he says. "Netflix, pay-per-view ... People have many, many reasons not to come here. Jazz CD sales are suffering, too. Most major labels have jettisoned their jazz rosters. And we're losing, quote, the giants of jazz."

But Yoshi's has shown that presenting jazz in quality surroundings can be profitable. Having Kamio in the kitchen won't hurt, either.

Says Akiba, "I think we've been very lucky."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

YOSHI'S: looking back

1972

Yoshi's Japanese Restaurant opens at Euclid and Hearst streets in Berkeley, founded by Yoshie Akiba, a dance graduate from Mills College; her husband Kaz Kajimura, an aspiring reporter, and chef Hiroyuki Hori.

1977

Yoshi's moves to a former laundry on Claremont Avenue in Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood. The partners convert the space into a 100-seat Japanese restaurant.

1980

The restaurant is a success, and the partners purchase the building and its 1-acre lot. They add on an upstairs sushi bar and lounge, where local jazz bands start performing during the week and Latin bands come in for dancing on weekends. Akiba occasionally dances between acts.

1985

Further success leads owners to construct a 200-seat add-on space that will become a nightclub. Yoshi's, dubbed Yoshi's Night Spot, now consists of a club with a bar, dance floor, stage and mezzanine -- seating around 200 -- and an upstairs bar and restaurant.

1985

Jazz club operator from Milwaukee named Chuck LaPaglia visits Yoshi's, falls in love with place and offers to book the club. With acts like Jimmy Smith, Milt Jackson and Stan Getz coming in, the club starts drawing crowds.

1987

Neighbors get restless over noise and loss of parking spaces. One resident discovers that Yoshi's failed to update its liquor license for a live-entertainment venue, so state Alcohol Beverage Control forbids club from serving alcohol downstairs. Customers must go upstairs to drink.

1987 Akiba and Kajimura divorce. Akiba marries a Zen priest in a big wedding at Yoshi's, Kajimura presiding.

1989

Club gets liquor license, but newly opened jazz club Kimball's East in Emeryville steals away LaPaglia. Steve Getz, son of saxophonist Stan Getz, takes over, but booking war with Kimball's East leads to financial losses.

1992

LaPaglia returns to Yoshi's and brings a partner, Todd Barkan, who used to run storied San Francisco club the Keystone Korner, which closed in 1983. Yoshi's is renamed Yoshi's Keystone Korner. Barkan brings in big-name acts, busting the club's budget on fees and hotel bills. He leaves after a year. Name reverts to Yoshi's Night Spot.

1995

LaPaglia leaves. Publicist Jason Olaine takes over booking. Yoshi's debts lead owners to sell the property to next-door Dreyer's Ice Cream, which wants to expand into the club's space. Owners prepare to shut down, but Oakland Redevelopment Agency makes Jack London Square proposal. While pondering, club continues to operate, leasing space from Dreyer's.

1997

Club opens

in new space.

2003

Club begins discussions with San Francisco over building a new Yoshi's in the Fillmore District.

2004

Club secures loan from San Francisco Redevelopment Agency

for new club.

2006

Chef Shotaro "Sho" Kamio takes over kitchen, revitalizing menu.

2007 Construction gets under way for S.F. club, but stalls over building permit process. Estimate for when club will open: fall 2007.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anniversary events A number of events are planned for the month:

"Live at Yoshi's" anniversary compilation CD comes out Monday, featuring 10 songs recorded live at the club, including two tracks from KFOG broadcasts previously unreleased: "This Is Heaven to Me," by Madeleine Peyroux, and "Help the Poor," by Robben Ford. The other tracks are by Marian McPartland, Joe Pass, Joey DeFrancesco and Poncho Sanchez.

The CDs, along with other items, such as Yoshi's T-shirts and tickets to future shows, will be given away to winners of trivia questions asked by Yoshi's crew before shows.

In the anniversary vein of 10, admission is $10 to 10 p.m. shows Monday (Concord High School Jazz Band) and Tuesday (guitarists Chico Pinheiro and Anthony Wilson), and to singer Kate McGarry's 10 p.m. show on May 29.

E-mail David Rubien at drubien@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...KGHVPL6GF32.DTL

This article appeared on page PK - 16 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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  • 1 year later...

Today's SF Chron has this piece about Yoshi's. Seems like an interesting direction considering the state of the economy.

Yoshi's S.F. changes its repertoire

Jesse Hamlin, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Like everybody else, Yoshi's has been roughed up by the recession and credit freeze.

The Bay Area's premier jazz club, which opened an elegant San Francisco venue in late 2007 to complement its longtime Oakland operation, has seen its music and restaurant business drop 20 percent over the past year. In addition to losing several hundred thousand dollars, it couldn't get private funding to pay off the huge cost overruns on the construction of its Fillmore Street project.

Things looked pretty bleak until last month, when the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency gave Yoshi's - a centerpiece of the city's ambitious plan to revive the once-swinging Fillmore District - a $1.5 million emergency loan. It came on top of a $1.3 million loan the agency gave the club in September, and the original $4.4 million long-term loan it provided to Yoshi's to develop the 28,000-square-foot space on the ground floor of the Fillmore Heritage Center, a 12-story condo tower that also houses the 1300 on Fillmore restaurant and a small jazz museum.

"We're hanging on, and we're going to hang on," said Yoshi's owner Kaz Kajimura. Getting the new loan "was a tremendous relief." He admits that the thought of closing one of the locations had crossed his mind, but he was encouraged that big crowds turned out last month at both clubs. Kajimura expects to pay off creditors - including some who have filed lawsuits against the club - as soon as the city cuts him a check. And to bring in a wider audience, Yoshi's is diversifying its musical program; rather than showcasing jazz at both clubs, Yoshi's San Francisco will feature a broader mix of contemporary and traditional music from around the world, regional American roots music and genre-crossing artists who draw on rock, soul and other sounds.

Last year, jazz stars like Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter played both rooms over the course of a week, sometimes featuring different bands. It was a promising plan, but the audience wasn't big enough.

"It wasn't working. Yoshi's San Francisco was cannibalizing Yoshi's in Oakland," said Kajimura, who has hired Bill Kubeczko from Minneapolis' Cedar Cultural Center to program the San Francisco club. Peter Williams will continue booking jazz at the Oakland venue.

Kubeczko, who programmed a wide range of music and dance in nightlife-rich Minneapolis, had been hearing musicians like guitarist Bill Frisell rave about Yoshi's for years. "It's got an international reputation," said Kubeczko, a 53-year-old from Chicago who knows his blues and jazz but also grew up on the San Francisco sounds of the Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Mother Earth. Since moving here a few weeks ago, he's plunged into the local music scene, ears open to fresh talent.

Kubeczko, who wants to shift the programming gradually, has booked the Portland-based Irish musician Kevin Burke for Tuesday and the French Gypsy-klezmer band Les Yeux Noirs the next night. Next month he's bringing in Morocco's Master Musicians of Jajouka, led by Bachir Attar, and Nation Beat, a Brooklyn band that mixes up Brazilian grooves, New Orleans funk, Nashville fiddling and whatever else strikes it. Other artists he'd like to book for multinight runs include Bruce Hornsby, Doc Watson, the dancing Senegalese singer Baaba Maal and the Langston Hughes Project.

"We're still going to be doing jazz at Yoshi's San Francisco, but it won't be the main focus," said Kubeczko, who aims to widen the musical scope but "respect the jazz history of Yoshi's and this neighborhood." He wants to get to know the people who run Slim's, the Fillmore, Cafe Du Nord and other local venues and work "in the spirit of cooperation rather than competition. My hope is that given the economy, we can all survive and flourish."

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A dozen years ago, when Yoshi's was, in the words of its co-owner and namesake Yoshie Akiba, "a hideaway jazz club" nestled among private homes in Oakland's leafy Rockridge neighborhood, few would have expected that the place would come to bear the weight of the jazz world on its shoulders.

I'm not so sure about that line.... :mellow:

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"We're still going to be doing jazz at Yoshi's San Francisco, but it won't be the main focus," said Kubeczko, who aims to widen the musical scope but "respect the jazz history of Yoshi's and this neighborhood." He wants to get to know the people who run Slim's, the Fillmore, Cafe Du Nord and other local venues and work "in the spirit of cooperation rather than competition. My hope is that given the economy, we can all survive and flourish."

So sad. Even though I detest the idea of rearranging the original venue, I guess it's a matter of harsh economic times, a very common and pandemic malady these days. I was in S.F. last year and I was in a book store somewhere in the Fillmore district. The woman in the book store was listening to some hard core music (Cecil Taylor, Albert Alyer, etc) when I asked her where were some good venues for serious music in S.F.. She said there was really none outside of Yoshi's. I was stunned to hear this but this is what said.......*shrugs........

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"We're still going to be doing jazz at Yoshi's San Francisco, but it won't be the main focus," said Kubeczko, who aims to widen the musical scope but "respect the jazz history of Yoshi's and this neighborhood." He wants to get to know the people who run Slim's, the Fillmore, Cafe Du Nord and other local venues and work "in the spirit of cooperation rather than competition. My hope is that given the economy, we can all survive and flourish."

So sad. Even though I detest the idea of rearranging the original venue, I guess it's a matter of harsh economic times, a very common and pandemic malady these days. I was in S.F. last year and I was in a book store somewhere in the Fillmore district. The woman in the book store was listening to some hard core music (Cecil Taylor, Albert Alyer, etc) when I asked her where were some good venues for serious music in S.F.. She said there was really none outside of Yoshi's. I was stunned to hear this but this is what said.......*shrugs........

It is a superficial impression of the Bay Area to think that Yoshi's and Amoeba are all there is to offer in terms of jazz. I'm not sure what you mean by "hard core," but if you're looking for improvised creative music, there is almost always something going on: http://www.transbaycalendar.org/.

Anyway, I'm not really surprised by Yoshi's SF's "new" direction. It is unfortunate, though.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I grew up in Oakland, and I've been to countless shows at Yoshi's over the years, dating back to the Claremont Ave days. I wish them nothing but the best, and the new San Francisco location is certainly a nice place to see a gig. Sadly, I think it's hard for many of us who have been around the Bay Area scene not to see alarming parallels between the direction taken by Yoshi's and the disastrous expansion of another local cultural cornerstone, the now-shuttered Cody's book store. In each case, a costly expansion helped undermine the original location, and in each case the new location selected was arguably ill-considered. I think it's clear that Cody's was misreading their base to imagine Union Square was the right place for an independent bookstore. Similarly, it was clear from comments in the press when the SF Yoshi's opened that they were banking on a dubious assumption that the fact that the neighborhood was once (decades ago) a jazz hub would somehow assure success in the present. BFrank is exactly right about the lavish scale too. I really hope it works out, but I am certainly concerned.

Of course, as much as I cherish the club, I would argue that Yoshi's could have done a better job of expanding or solidifying their audience in recent years by making a more serious and creative effort to engage the community of local jazz musicians. It's been a bit of an on-and-off relationship at best, particularly since the demise of regular Jazz in Flight gigs. Of course, I understand the difficulties of presenting acts that are not huge draws in a large, expensive space, but it's not impossible. And, while such a course of action would probably not be an immediate, short term windfall for the club, finding creative ways to showcase local talent and engage the local scene is a good way to increase your appeal with and assure the loyalty of the hard core jazz fans who will stick by you when times are tough and/or Chris Botti decides he'd rather play the Enormodome.

All that said, the bookstore clerk definitely gave you a bum steer, Enterprise. There is, thankfully, still a lot of great jazz to be heard in the Bay Area and a deep pool of extraordinary players. The venue situation is undoubtedly pretty dire at the moment, but, for better or worse, that it consistent with the ebb-and-flow that has afflicted the Bay Area scene for at least as long as I've been directly involved in it (since the mid-90s). Here's hoping that the sad demise of a lot of our venues will at least spur some creative solutions in the form of alternate venues and performance opportunities, something that is already happening a bit.

nathan

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Kimball's is what I keep thinking about. They first started presenting fairly straight ahead jazz in SF's Civic Center area and then expanded to Kimball's East in Oakland. The SF venu eventually folded and became a popular restaurant while "East" went to much more commercial and dance-able forms of music.......and eventually folded as well.

Having said that, I'm going to see Hank Jones at Yoshi's SF next week. Looking forward to it!

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