Kyle Eastwood, son of Clint, made a quick visit home for
Father’s Day and played a mean bass Friday night at the San Juan
Oaks Golf Club at a benefit for the San Benito County Arts
Council.
“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
– Pablo Picasso
Kyle Eastwood, son of Clint, made a quick visit home for Father’s Day and played a mean bass Friday night at the San Juan Oaks Golf Club at a benefit for the San Benito County Arts Council. This was the art council’s first public fund-raising event to help establish community programs to promote the arts in San Benito County.
Before Kyle’s band began playing, David Dumont, known as Silicon Valley’s Piano Man, was the featured pianist playing music during the cocktail hour. He was quoted in the program for the evening: “We need more listeners. We need more people to take the responsibility of participating in the listening process. And part of that responsibility is the support of art. It’s more than just sitting.”
There was a slight gasp as Kyle entered the room and audience members registered his resemblance to his famous dad, both in height and build, with the same bouffant bit of hair that stands up in front and long sideburns that Clint had as a young man.
The opening song was definitely one I could easily imagine being part of the soundtrack for an action sequence in a movie. Kyle played an unusual fretless bass with five strings, rather than the usual four, which gave the music a fatter sound. He alternated between the fretless electric, upright acoustic and electric bass guitar. His quintet features tenor sax man Dave O’Higgins, with Graeme Flowers on trumpet. On “Marrakech,” a song inspired by his time in Morocco, there was a power overload and a circuit blew, knocking out the mikes and some of the lights.
With the same calm style and low-key ease as his dad, Kyle joked that it was because the system didn’t like the slow song the band had begun. When the power was restored, he began the song again from the beginning, creating a magical mood that transported the audience to the colorful marketplaces and mosques of Marrakech, creating a feeling of exotic mystery as images of another place filled our minds. One woman in the audience shouted out, “It was better the second time!”
The San Benito County Arts Council more than outdid itself with this sold-out event. Not only was the concert very reasonably priced at $45 (with no handling fees!), but that price also included three types of wine and a big buffet spread of hors d’oeuvres. What an enjoyable way to spend an evening – drinking wine and listening to jazz in a beautiful setting among the oak trees.
Many of us who grew up in the Monterey Peninsula area have collected stories of Clint Eastwood sightings, since his home is in Carmel. The last time I saw him, Clint and wife Dina had come to pay their respects to jazz legend Marian McPartland when she played at Santa Cruz’s Kuumbwa. Some of you remember my story of how I actually had to brush up against Clint in order to squeeze by him and down the aisle to my seat – Dirty Harry was in my way, and I didn’t want to knock into him!
As we stood in line after Kyle’s concert to meet the musician and get our programs autographed, a beautiful middle-aged African-American woman behind me talked about how Clint had bought her a drink one time, and a man in line recalled being stationed at Fort Ord at the same time as Clint Eastwood.
I don’t suppose Kyle will ever stop being compared to his accomplished dad, but at Friday’s concert, he more than held his own when he demonstrated his genre-jumping musical versatility making his way from the bebop of Charlie “Bird” Parker to the Herbie Hancock-influenced funk fusion style of “Cosmo,” and on to a reworking of the ’40s big band style of “Big Noise From Winnetka.” At 39, Kyle has recently released his third CD, called “Now,” and worked with long-time collaborator Michael Stevens to score the music for the critically acclaimed film “Letters from Iwo Jima.” His band is currently touring from Tucson to Temecula, across the U.K. and Slovakia. To learn more, visit http://www.kyleeastwood.com/
