Report: Shankar, Coleman, Cohen In S.F.

First, we take the Bay Area: three musical legends mount epic concerts in San Francisco and San Jose in October and November.

BY JUD COST

Music fans were vividly reminded of the temporal nature of the lifespan of the touring musician during a particularly fertile recent fortnight in the San Francisco Bay Area. From October 29 through November 13, you could have witnessed epic concerts by master Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar, American free-jazz alto saxophone legend Ornette Coleman and Canadian singer-songwriter-poet Leonard Cohen.

Shankar and Coleman appeared on different nights at San Francisco's upscale Davies Symphony Hall as part of the fall season of SF Jazz, and Cohen wrapped up the most recent segment of his world tour at San Jose's cavernous HP Pavilion. Houses for all three events seemed to be running at about 90 percent capacity, perhaps filled with fans who realized these three musical icons won't be touring forever. Cohen, at 75, is the relative youngster of the group, Coleman is 79 and Shankar is still going strong at the ripe old age of 89.

Unlike revenge, its more volatile cousin, regret is a dish that lingers on the tongue, no matter what temperature you dish it up. And its pungent after-taste doesn't go away anytime soon. In the summer of 1966, I entered the box office of the St. Claire Hotel in San Jose, Calif. to buy a pair of tickets to see the Beatles at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. I was stunned to learn the coveted cardboard strips would set me back a gaudy $5.50 apiece. It may be hard to comprehend in the era of the six-dollar hamburger, but eleven bucks was a lot of money back then. Reckoning that I might have a little more ready cash the following year, I reluctantly passed on the Beatles tickets. I've regretted it ever since. When it was announced the Fab Four would stop performing live, I grabbed a fistful of red Georgia clay and took a retooled version of the Scarlett O'Hara oath: "I swear I will never again miss an important musical act."

Easier said than done, of course. I decided not to go to a local appearance by R&B star Jimmy Reed in 1976, and then he died the following week. When I tried to buy tickets for the 1980 U.S. appearance of Joy Division at tiny East Bay club Berkeley Square, I found out the tour had been canceled due to the suicide of Ian Curtis. Over the years I somehow missed seeing Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Little Richard, but not much else.

Recent weeks have seen a mother lode of musical genius pass through northern California.

Ravi Shankar: In his introductory remarks, SF Jazz founder Randall Kline announced that the evening's first set would be played by Shankar's daughter, Anoushka, also a master of the sitar. But Anoushka appeared moments later on the arm of her esteemed father, and the two of them enthralled the audience for the next two hours, trading off thrilling, improvised runs on the ancient Indian instrument. Accompanied by the dynamic yet sensitive rhythmic patterns of Tanmoy Bose on tabla and Pirashanna Thevarajah on mridangam (a longer drum, about twice the size of the tabla), some were lengthy and complex, others as soft and caressing as the first rays of the morning sun. Ravi mentioned that he's always loved playing in San Francisco (probably the reason he decided at the last moment to play the entire program, rather than just the second set) since the very first time he visited the city as part of his older brother's dance troupe in 1932. It's obvious that when Ravi decides to retire from public concert, Anoushka is fully capable of carrying on the family name in customary grand style.

Ornette Coleman: The first time I saw Ornette Coleman play with his own group he was accompanied by bassist David Izenzon and drummer Charles Moffett at San Francisco's tiny Divisadero district jazz club Both/And in 1966. Last week he was flanked by two bassists, one acoustic, the other electric, and his son Denardo on percussion, continuing a tradition begun in 1966 when Denardo first played drums on his dad's Empty Foxhole LP at the age of six.

Ornette's mostly playing that familiar white plastic alto sax these days with only occasional forays on violin and Don Cherry-inspired trumpet that lasted no more than half a minute. He sounds as lucid and forceful as ever. Coleman began his set with the ear-opening "Blues Connotation," an exciting number first heard on his 1960 album This Is Our Music. Coleman's songs, of course, are just launch pads for his mercurial improvisations that leave behind the bebop tradition of using chord changes for a roadmap. Coleman sent the crowd happy into the night with an encore that included his eternally sad "Lonely Woman" from his landmark 1959 longplayer The Shape Of Jazz To Come.

Leonard Cohen: As he apparently does for every show he plays these days, Leonard Cohen literally ran onto the stage of what on other nights serves as the ice surface for the San Jose Sharks. Dressed in a sharp blue serge suit and rakish fedora, Cohen has brought along a crack band that doesn't need to play loud-or vary the tempos much from a gentle stroll-to penetrate every dark corner of the arena. Whether he's serenading the audience on bended knees in his rich, weatherbeaten baritone or roaming the stage like a troubadour in search of a balcony, Cohen never fails to connect with his adoring crowd. He didn't use the classic, self-deprecating line from the three shows he played at Oakland's Paramount Theater last spring. When mentioning that he hadn't performed live here in ten years, Cohen referred to himself back then as "just a crazy 65-year-old kid with a dream." It's such a thrill to hear him perform his classics-"Suzanne," "Hallelujah," "Bird On A Wire" and "First We Take Manhattan"-that the nearly three hours Cohen spent onstage went by like a bullet train headed for points unknown. He certainly got no argument from his energetic legion of fans when he burst into the title song from his 1988 album I'm Your Man.