SFJAZZ Collective Reimagines Native Dancer at Miner Auditorium
Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer turns fifty this season, and the SFJAZZ Collective is celebrating that milestone with a rich act of musical exploration: a re‑voicing of a classic that valued imagination, collaboration, and the flexible boundary between Brazilian song and American jazz. The project aligns with the group’s mission and with Chris Potter’s curatorial sensibility—he is both the Collective’s music director and one of the genre’s most probing saxophonists. (Click play to listen to the interview.)
“The SFJAZZ Collective is an all-star band that the SFJAZZ Center puts together every year,” Potter says. “We come together in San Francisco for a residency to work on original compositions, and we often perform a tribute or thematic piece.”
The current seven-piece band—Potter and David Sánchez on saxophones, Michael Rodriguez on trumpet, Warren Wolf on vibraphone, Edward Simon on piano, Matt Brewer on bass, and Kendrick Scott on drums—arrived early to rehearse the material and then to the studio to record it.
Why Native Dancer? “It’s just an album that we all really, really love,” Potter explains. “It was released 50 years ago, and the music hasn’t been explored as much in a jazz context as some of Wayne Shorter’s other work. It’s also a chance to play Milton Nascimento’s music… It’s a very unique album… It’s just beautiful music.” Shorter’s 1975 collaboration with Nascimento blended jazz, rock, and funk with Brazilian rhythms, attracting an international audience to both artists; among the album’s highlights are “Ponta de Areia,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Ana Maria,” with Herbie Hancock serving as a key collaborator.
Recording the Collective’s reimagining was a creative challenge. “We each brought our own arrangements to these songs,” Potter says. “Part of the difficulty was that the tunes are so perfect as they are that we were trying to find something else to do with them. Nobody sounds like the folks on the original record, so we used that as our starting point.” After a week and a half in the studio, Potter spoke about the Collective’s progress with the project: “We’ve been recording around 14 tunes, including originals and all the songs on Native Dancer… it’ll probably come out around this time next year, that's my guess.”
The band considers “Ponta de Areia” both an invitation and a challenge. “It may be one of the catchiest melodies of all time… once you hear this, you’re gonna be humming it for the next week,” Potter laughs. “David Sánchez reimagined and rearranged it, but there’s really not a dud on that original album. Everyone brought in really beautiful arrangements, so I think it’s going to be a very strong project.” The choice makes musical sense: “Ponta de Areia” opened the 1975 LP and set the cross-cultural tone that made Native Dancer so widely influential.
Potter’s admiration for Shorter extends beyond his saxophone lineage to his way of thinking. He remembers watching Shorter rehearse a wind ensemble at the Monterey Jazz Festival: “He’d say, ‘Okay, so this section, you gotta imagine now that Superman is coming over the mountain.’ You could see the players writing ‘Superman’ into their parts,” Potter says. “And then a minute later he stops and says, ‘In bar 35, second clarinet, that’s a B-flat, not a B.’ He could tap into this imaginative, childlike artistic world, but he’d also bring it back to the basics.” The story serves as an ethos for the Collective’s project: picture the cape, then fix the pitch.
SFJAZZ Collective. Credit: SFJAZZ
“What can the audience expect?” Potter doesn’t hesitate: “Besides the music itself and the arrangements, it’s the strength of the group. This might be our third season together. There’s a real sense of mutual respect and love, and we’re applying our talents to music we love. I would imagine the overall feeling is like, ‘Oh wow… this is a real statement from a group that plays like a band!’”
The set lists might change throughout the weekend. “We’re hoping to include all the tunes we arranged from Native Dancer, along with a few originals,” he notes. “We have three performances—Saturday evening, a Sunday matinee, and a Sunday evening—and they could all be a little different, especially when it comes to the originals.” For new listeners to the Collective, the mix of tribute and original compositions shows the ensemble’s core: a space for composer-improvisers who see jazz history as material for innovation.
Potter’s own path underscores that charge. He first gained national attention as a teenage saxophonist with Red Rodney, then expanded his musical language with Paul Motian, Dave Holland, and many others, while developing a diverse body of work as a leader. DownBeat readers once ranked him just behind Sonny Rollins, and his résumé includes work with Herbie Hancock and Steely Dan. At SFJAZZ, he is a familiar figure—music director of the Collective and a returning Resident Artistic Director—so his leadership of this Shorter/Nascimento project feels both personal and local.
As the studio lights dim on this session, Potter is already looking ahead. “I think our next meeting is scheduled for April at Birdland in New York City, and I’ll be on the road with my own groups,” he says. “I’m going to Japan with Herbie Hancock next month, and there’s a concert tribute in Mumbai to one of the great Indian musicians who lived in the Bay Area… a lot of things coming down the pike.”
TICKET INFO
The SFJAZZ Collective will perform three shows on November 1–2 at Miner Auditorium, celebrating the music of Wayne Shorter’s album Native Dancer.
Saturday, Nov. 1 – 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 2 – 3:00 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 2 – 7:00 p.m.
Tickets: https://www.sfjazz.org/tickets/productions/25-26/sfjazz-collective/
For more on Chris Potter’s music and tour schedule, visit: https://www.chrispottermusic.com
Photos: Courtesy of SFJAZZ
