Went to Jazz Fest, saw Herbie ... and Marcus!

[dharma]

Marcus Miller was the featured bassist in the act referred to by billing as "The Herbie Hancock Quartet."

He was a vision, to be sure.

Question, though. What woodwind does he play?

I saw a large, sax-like instrument; it was much larger and longer, black and gold. I'd say even up to just under 4 feet tall.

Curved, like a sax, or I'da though it was a bassoon. Any ideas? Wish my camera phone wasn't so crappy, I'd have a picture for reference.

[jazzbasser535]

it's a bass clarinet

[Lorenzini]

Did they play Headhunters stuff?

That's awesome.

Herbie is the man.

[BassManPatsFan]

Marcus plays bass clarinet and so do I. I've never heard him play it, but he turned me on to Legère plastic reeds in an interview from a year or two ago. They're great...speaking of that I gotta go practice BC.
-Alex

[dharma]

They played music that sounded like the sound track to life, but the specific songs totally escape me. I do remember some things:

One was a Miles tune, the name of which I can't remember.

The other was the incomparable of incomparables: "Chameleon"

That in itself was funny because of the situation, which was as follows.

They relegated Herbie to the WWOZ jazz tent, which looked like capacity - 5000.

I'd call it quite a few more that showed up to see him, around 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon.

The crowd was so huge, they had to move people before they'd start the set, but my girlfriend and I pinned ourselves against some seats and hung at the edges of the aisle sitting on the concrete floor.

The set got cut short and Herbie said, "Well, we're runnin' out of time, so I figure we'll just get to this."

Herbie opened with the bass line, and Marcus played the keys part in the upper register for a minute.

Glorious.

It was all worth it, really. The entire trip to New Orleans was really to see Herbie, and karma rewarded me with Marcus on bass.