(Click on the pic from Ariel Soto to go to a slideshow of flicks from last night's gala.)
Evidently, 82-year-old jazz drummer Roy Haynes tore up the Grand Opening of Yoshi's in the Fillmore last night. We have pics, but the Merc has the wisdom:
So there was a lot of symbolism involved in having Haynes up there: The man of eternal youth - who undoubtedly played at the old Bop City on Fillmore, decades ago, as did Miles and Parker and Coltrane (all ex-bandmates of Haynes') - was initiating the 417-seat club in the Western Addition with his all-star group (Kenny Garrett; Ravi Coltrane, son of the above; Gary Burton, and more). Eternal youth breeds and signifies rebirth; that was the theme of the night.The 28,000-square-foot Yoshi's San Francisco is part of a $72 million jazz-and-condos cultural complex, known as the Fillmore Heritage Center, which fills a chunk of a square block just south of Geary Boulevard in the historically African-American and Japanese district.
Of course, no opening is complete without the requisite shit-talking. SFist has a cool thread on whether or not Yoshi's should've been hip-hop if they wanted to re-claim the mantle of "blackness" in the Fillmore district. Whaaaaatever. —DAVID DOWNS
