He blew his horn, blew out the candles and blew away a full house at the Dakota Jazz Club Sunday evening with his buoyant spirit, easy humor and enduring musicality. Irv Williams sure knows how to celebrate a birthday.
It was No. 96 for Mr. Smooth, the pride of the Twin Cities who plays most Fridays at the Dakota during happy hour.
On Sunday, he still had that smooth, full sound on saxophone, playing standards with guitarist Steve Blons and bassist Steve Bickell.
During the first of two 45-minute sets, Williams showed a tendency to end each piece with a playful little twist by blowing an odd extra note after the song was done.
At the end of the set, Williams said he was running low on energy and needed to go outside and get some fresh air. Instead, he spent the entire intermission sitting onstage receiving birthday cards and greetings from bar-goers, all captured by KARE 11 cameras for a Boyd Huppert report.
At the start of the second set, Dakota co-owner Lowell Pickett presented Williams with a cake (above). It took more than one blow to snuff out all the candles, even though there weren't quite 96 of them.
Pickett called the saxophonist "an absolute treasure." Every performance, Pickett continued, "is a gift to us."
Then the club owner told the story of how about 20 years ago at a gig, Williams was asked to play "Satin Doll." The saxophonist said that night, "I must have played that 300, 400, 500, 1,000 times. Man, I hate that song. You asked for it, I'll play it." Williams repeated that last line three or four more times. He played "Satin Doll" and there were no more requests that night.
