A Tribute for the Guitarist Jeff Golub At BB Kings Blues Club.
A memorial concert hosted by friends of Jeff Golub” which ran the better part of four hours at the B. B. King Blues Club on Wednesday night, the keyboardist Jason Miles offered an encomium, brief and to the point. “Whatever he did, whether it was smooth or it was blues, there was a commitment,” he said of Mr. Golub, a crisp and stylistically fluid guitarist who died on Jan. 1 at 59. In a career of some 35 years, Mr. Golub worked comfortably in blues, rock and soul, on his own and as a sideman with the likes of Rod Stewart and Billy Squier. But he belonged to the realm of smooth jazz, and it was from those ranks that his tribute drew. The evening’s roster of artists, which under different circumstances could have passed muster as a festival bill, underscored not only the good will earned by Mr. Golub but also a spirit of camaraderie, breezy yet solicitous, within the current smooth jazz scene.
Mr. Golub died of complications of progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare brain disorder. He had lost his sight a few years before that diagnosis, though he continued to perform, even after an accident with a subway trainin 2012. There were allusions in the program to his struggles, but the larger point was his endless enthusiasm for performing. (Proceeds from the concert, which sold out in advance, went to his family.)
There was just one video clip of Mr. Golub, playing a signature tune, “Dangerous Curves.” Beyond that, the show was a crash course in his recent collaborative history. The keyboardist Philippe Saisse performed “The Velvet Touch,” an aptly named ballad that he wrote and recorded with Mr. Golub. The saxophonist Richard Elliot, who played “Ain’t No Woman Like the One I Got” on one of Mr. Golub’s albums, revisited his imploring take on that melody, with the guitarist Chuck Loeb.
In a similar vein, the saxophonist Dave Koz played “Bada Bing” in easy tandem with the trumpeter Rick Braun. The saxophonist Kirk Whalum charged through Donny Hathaway’s “Valdez in the Country.” And the members of Avenue Blue, Mr. Golub’s former band, finessed “Just Goodbye,” the musical answer to a shimmering sunset. That might even have been the moment of peak smooth in the show, were it not for an appearance by Christopher Cross, singing his adult-contemporary classics “Sailing” and “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do),” the latter with a burnished assist by Mr. Koz.
As for the harder stuff, it included a bracing tune by Mr. Miles, “Coming Home Baby,” with Randy Brecker on trumpet; a rollicking “Let the Good Times Roll,” with Henry Butler on piano and vocals; a corny but energetic cover of the Who’s “Pinball Wizard” by the saxophonist and singer Mindi Abair, who tweaked the lyric to “Guitar Wizard.” And as a full-stop finale, there was “Pick Up the Pieces” by the Average White Band.
But two of the more affecting moments came from a more solitary place. One involved Jonny Rosch rasping the Warren Zevon farewell “Keep Me in Your Heart.” The other had Daniel MacGowan — a neurologist at Mount Sinai Beth Israel who treated and befriended Mr. Golub — belting the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road” with an unpolished intensity of feeling that quickly got under the skin.