Saxophonist Boney James also played on ''Brown Sugar" as an introduction to his own performance. Let's make something perfectly clear: James is not a smooth jazz player. Yeah, he often played with people such as Kenny G and Najee, but his music is muscular and gritty, whereas most smooth jazz has all the texture and complexity of a cue ball.
Shifting among alto, tenor, and soprano saxophones, James gave an exhilarating performance and made sure he backed up his claim that the sax is ''the sexiest instrument there is." He didn't just strut and dance through songs such as a rendition of Bill Withers's ''Ain't No Sunshine" and his own composition, ''Stone Groove." James swaggered across the stage like a blacktop hero draining threes on an overmatched opponent. He even weaved his way through the audience, never missing a beat and all but daring the crowd not to have a good time.
James also joined Jarreau, whose song selection stretched from his still-glorious 1975 debut, ''We Got By," to his latest, a collection of standards, ''Accentuate the Positive."
If Jarreau's sky-scraping range has dipped an octave or two during his 30-year career, he can still coax great drama from his songs. Always a cunning, playful singer, he opened with the frolicking ''Distracted," from one of his earlier albums, ''This Time," and had a blast with ''Cold Duck," for which he wrote the lyrics to an instrumental by the late (and criminally underrated) saxophonist Eddie Harris, as well as such hits as ''Mornin' " ''We're in This Love Together" and ''Breakin' Away."
By evening's end, the rains came, but those who stuck around were treated to a jam session, featuring Wilson, Jarreau, and James on Stevie Wonder's ''Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing."
