If you go
Walter Beasley
Where: The Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Info: $37.50; ticketmaster.com
Walter Beasley almost seems too good to be true. How can one of the most highly regarded contemporary saxophone players in the world continue to hold down a full-time teaching job at his alma mater, the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and provide a host of extra musical instruction?
“Everything in today’s society is so ‘bam bam,’ ” Beasley said. “People don’t take the time to reach back and help others. Someone did it for me, and now I want to do it. I take education seriously.”
Indeed, he has. The man called the “heir to Grover Washington Jr.’s throne” not only has earned kudos for his classroom teaching but also for his highly regarded instructional materials both formal and informal, including a blog on his MySpace page. And of course the CDs he released last year — “Free Your Mind” and “Sax Meditations” — received all kinds of critical and popular praise.
Never one to rest on his laurels, Beasley just finished recording a live CD that he plans to release this year.
“I haven’t done a live album since about 1995, and it was just time,” he said. “I had people begging for it. The live [CDs] I had recorded were old, and I’ve changed my way of writing. It was just time to do it now.”
Like his upcoming gig at Birchmere, expect the music recorded at the Boston-area club gig to vacillate between silky numbers that unfold much like musical ribbons to more up-tempo, party-packed numbers. But Beasley, a favorite performer in the D.C. area, also plans to play a few just-written numbers as well as some songs he knows the local crowds favor. Unlike many other entertainers, Beasley seems tuned into area audiences and crafts his sets accordingly.
“There’s so much cookie-cutter music out there; people are tired of it,” Beasley said of fans’ requests for a live album. “This is the way we sound, this is the way we feel. We play music like [musicians did] back in the old days.”
More specifically, Beasley takes lessons himself from some of music’s greats — including Marvin Gaye — and molds his music until it’s elegant. While some contemporary artists rely on machine-generated sounds and foul language to convey their messages, Beasley’s natural sound generates feel-good fun.
“It’s always a party and a great time,” Beasley said. “I am responsible for everyone going away from the show feeling good; that’s my main goal. And they will feel good.”
