The friends you make in the first years of college can shape the course of your life.
Upon meeting at New Jersey’s William Paterson University in 1987 drummer Joe Farnsworth and tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander forged a relationship that has taken them to the world’s greatest clubs and concert halls.
Two of the most prolific and esteemed jazz artists of their generation, they reconvene with another William Paterson compatriot, San Francisco bassist Michael Zisman, for a three-night, six-show running Aug. 21-23 at the swanky Tenderloin jazz club Black Cat.
Zisman gave up the sideman hustle years ago but has kept a foot in the scene by accompanying vocalist Kim Nalley, a chair he’s held down for decades.
While Farnsworth and Alexander continue to perform and record with each other regularly, “it’s been 20 years since we all played together,” Farnsworth said. “This is really a reunion of that William Paterson fellowship.”
Bay Area pianist Matt Clark, a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, rounds out the quartet. Alexander met Clark during his stint in New York, but Farnsworth first played with the pianist at Kuumbwa last year when Zisman recommended him. Clark didn’t disappoint.
“He was a throwback to the New York style of comping,” Farnsworth said, referring to an approach where a player focuses intensely on elevating the band with their accompaniment rather than stretching out on solos. “Matt had that energy, and that was thrilling to hear.”
Farnsworth embodies those values himself. As much as any player of his generation, he absorbed the supple and forceful approach of the master drummers who mentored him, Alan Dawson, Arthur Taylor and Jimmy Lovelace. A precociously gifted player, he arrived at university more than ready to soak up experience with the elders who defined post-World War II jazz.
“Joe comes from a very musical family and he knew a lot of the recorded history, much more than I did,” Alexander said. “I was sort of a neophyte. But we started playing together, and we were both students of Mabes’,” the affectionate nickname for veteran pianist Harold Mabern.
The Black Cat mini-residency is a centennial tribute to saxophonist John Coltrane, whose classic mid-1960s quartet recordings like “Crescent” and “A Love Supreme” were a seminal influence on the Patersonians. On his most recent trip to the Bay Area, Farnsworth powered pianist Emmet Cohen’s “Miles Davis and John Coltrane @ 100” tour.
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Alexander has been a much scarcer presence on the West Coast in recent years. With a sound as rich and round as any player on the scene he gained recognition as one of the leading voices of his generation when he placed second behind Joshua Redman at the 1991 Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition (SFJAZZ Collective music director Chris Potter came in third).
Alexander spent about 18 months honing his skills in Chicago before moving to New York City, where he rejoined forces with Farnsworth. The drummer was running a weekly jam session at Augie’s, an Upper West Side jazz spot that’s now home to Smoke Jazz Club. Looking for opportunities to play with their musical heroes, they started hiring their mentors, like Mabern.
“We said, we’re going to get the best cats out there, pass the hat, and guarantee them, say $200, and we’ll take the scraps,” Alexander recalled.
He started documenting those relationships on one of his early albums, 1993’s “Up, Over & Out,” a quartet session for Chicago-based Delmark Records with Farnsworth, Mabern and Thelonious Monk bassist John Ore.
“That was a springboard for my career,” he said. Todd Barkan, a prolific producer in the years after his storied North Beach jazz club Keystone Korner closed in 1983, connected Alexander with a record label in Japan, which led to his 1997 album with piano great Cedar Walton “Man With a Horn.”
“When that came out, things went gonzo,” Alexander said. “I couldn’t believe people loved it so much. They wanted us to come to Japan and we probably toured there twice a year from 1998 to 2015.”
While Alexander has released about 50 albums as a leader or co-leader, Farnsworth has only recently stepped forward to run his own band. Losing several mentors in quick succession forced a mid-life reckoning. It’s no coincidence that his recent albums feature twentysomething saxophonists Sarah Hanahan and Immanuel Wilkins.
“I’m in my 50s and I realized I hadn’t taken full responsibility for my own self,” he said. “I had to start playing with younger people.”
But there’s always room to commune with the comrades who were there at the start.
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Contact Andrew Gilbert at [email protected].
JOE FARNSWORTH
Performing with Eric Alexander and Big Room QT
When: 7 and 9:30 p.m. Aug. 21-23
Where: Black Cat, San Francisco
Tickets: $20-$60; blackcatsf.com
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