Joey DeFrancesco is young, especially by jazz standards, and yet it seems as if he's been around forever. For one thing, his r e sum e reads like one belonging to a 50-year music veteran.
``I think people forget my age,'' the 35-year-old master of the Hammond B-3 organ says in a phone interview from his home in Phoenix.
``I've been out there for so long that I, too, start thinking, `Wow, I'm kind of young for what I've done.' ''
He's done just about everything since breaking into the business at age 10: released nearly a score of critically acclaimed albums, including the fine ``Organic Vibes'' last year; has been named best organist in the Down Beat magazine critics poll for five consecutive years (2002-2006); and has maintained a Herculean tour schedule, performing 175-200 gigs a year.
He will augment the 2007 tally when he visits Northern California for a week of shows, beginning Monday at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz, continuing at the University of California-Davis Tuesday through Jan.
27 and finishing Jan. 28 in a Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society program in Half Moon Bay.
The Pennsylvania-born musician is touring prior to the February release of the album ``Authorized Bootleg,'' recorded live last year at Yoshi's in Oakland.
Though DeFrancesco is a big fan of the club, he says he didn't originally plan to make a CD there.
``It just happened to work out,'' he says. ``I was playing .
. . with my trio, and (saxophonist) George Coleman was featured as the special guest.
I told the sound engineer, `You should record us every night just so I have it for reference.' . .
. I was just floored by the music and by the quality of the recording. I thought it was something really great, so I wanted to put it out.
''
Despite producing enough material for a disc, those shows aren't the most memorable dates DeFrancesco has played at Yoshi's. That distinction belongs to February 2005 gigs that were supposed to be a co-headlining affair with legendary B-3 organist Jimmy Smith, celebrating the release of the pair's CD ``Legacy.'' But Smith died just days before.
DeFrancesco thought about canceling, out of respect to Smith, but decided to keep the commitment. ``I really wanted to go to the funeral; I was even asked to be a pallbearer,'' he says. ``But I know how Jimmy was.
Jimmy didn't even go to his wife's funeral. He didn't like funerals. He was always like, `You got to do the gig.
' ''
So DeFrancesco did the shows, with help from world-class saxophonist James Moody. Still, DeFrancesco made sure the crowd wouldn't forget Smith was missing from the stage. ``I just had to have something there to bring Jimmy's spirit there somehow,'' DeFrancesco remembers.
``He had given me an organ just a couple of months before, so I brought it with me and set it up on the other side of the stage.''
That organ was never played. It just sat there, adorned with a bouquet of flowers, a glass of red wine and a cigarette -- stuff Jimmy would have had if he'd been playing, says DeFrancesco.
``It was such an emotional thing. . .
. I was crying every night.''
DeFrancesco was 7 when he met Smith, and the two grew close over the years.
The only B-3 artist who played a bigger role in DeFrancesco's development was his dad, ``Papa'' John DeFrancesco, who was encouraging the boy to play keyboards by age 4. The kid was a natural. By the time he was 17, trumpet great Miles Davis had made the organist a part of his band.
Recently, DeFrancesco has gotten attention for his organ work on the 2006 CD ``Ray Sings, Basie Swings,'' which used technology to mix vocals from a 1973 Ray Charles performance with new accompaniment by the Count Basie Orchestra and other musicians.
DeFrancesco sees a busy 2007 ahead, and he's already planning his next project. ``I got some ideas,'' he says, ``but I can't blow my secrets.
You're going to have to wait and see.''Joey DeFrancesco
Where: Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz
Also: 4:30 p.
m. Jan.
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