The O’Jays team with their chart-topping ’70s soul contemporary Gladys Knight for a Basie doubleheader on Thursday. Saxman Boney James (below) throws fusion-jazz buffs a bone on Wednesday.
As summer 2015 winds down, the year-round concert action continues unabated on the boards of Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre stage with the latest in an ongoing slate of shows designed to bolster the tradition of “Jazz at the Basie, Where It Belongs.”
It resumes Wednesday night with platinum-plated saxman James “Boney James” Oppenheim, and continues Thursday with chart-toppers Gladys Knight and the O’Jays.
Though his signature cocktail of contemporary smooth jazz, classic R&B, and digital-age tech savvy seems far removed from the big-hearted big band jump of Bill “Count” Basie and company, Oppenheim has staked out a prime corner within the millennial musical landscape, framing his “analog” reed skills in a hypercurrent setting that could only be called “retro music for a modern age.”
Touring behind his latest genre-bending release futuresoul, the serial Grammy nominee (and Soul Train Award winner) slides into station stop Red Bank for a local debut that blows its first note at 8 pm. Reserve tickets ($25 – $49) right here.
As one train leaves the station, another eases on in — and the following evening offers up a heretofore unprecedented must-catch opportunity for fans of early ’70s transistor-radio soul. Starring are the O’Jays — the Philly-sound exponents and Rock and Roll Hall of Famers who made tracks with “Love Train” and a procession of tightly tough/sweetly symphonic number one hits that also included “Backstabbers,” “I Love Music” and “Used To Be My Girl.”
The trio of Eddie Levert Sr., Walter Williams Sr. and Eric Nolan Grant will be joined for the 8 pm show by a fellow multiple chart-topper and seven-time Grammy go-getter — Gladys Knight, performing here without the Pips, but with the O’Jays pulling down the backing-vocal duties and vintage choreographed moves. Expect to have your ticket punched for that “Midnight Train to Georgia,” with such stops as “Neither One of Us” and “Best Thing to Ever Happen to Me” along the route. Reservations ($89 – $135, with an “O’Jays VIP Experience Package” available for $234) available right here.
