When Jackson Browne was a young boy, growing up in nearby Highland Park, he revealed Friday night at Pasadena’s All Saints Church, he would take the bus from what likely would have been York and Figueroa Street into Pasadena for judo lessons at the YMCA.
“I was about eight years old, “he said. “It seemed very normal to me.”
Brown related the brief tale as he introduced “Off of Wonderland” from his 2014 Time the Conqueror LP.
“It’s nice to come back to the neighborhood, and have these touchstones of sorts,” he offered. And the neighbors were thrilled to see him back.
Browne performed a full set, his second ever at the venue, with a small band—vocalist Chavonne Stewart, vocalist Alethea Mills, bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, and multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz—to benefit the non-profit organization Exposher, which provides mentoring for inner city girls.
The group’s mission is “to empower girls to reach their fullest potential with access to education, careers, mentorships, community, sisterhood, travel and building life skills,” explained vocalist Stewart, who created the organization.
Browne’s unique voice, from the moment he casually said “Hello,” after doffing his leather jacket, could have been from any era in his nearly 50-year career, still resonant and strong, though he recently turned 74.
His enraptured audience, none of whom was under fifty, hung on every note.
Fronting an impressive rack of guitars, acoustic and electric, and opening with “Some Bridges,” Browne and company’s sound was full and strong, reaching to the furthest rafters of the church, as if it was somehow built for music performance. Perhaps all churches are.
From there it was on to “Before the Deluge,” from his 1974 Late for the Sky album. Though he must have lost count as to how many times he has performed the tune, the song was as poignant and stirring and just as vaguely naive, as it was when he was the heartthrob of every high school senior and college coed, from UCLA to Wellesley.
But songs like his tell the stories we can’t articulate ourselves, and set a path to follow for generations—at least one, for sure—as he continues to sing them.
Browne scattered the wide-ranging set with tunes from most phases in his career, from when he was almost every song on the radio that wasn’t Fleetwood Mac, or Led Zeppelin, to later albums that gasped for airplay.
The 90-minute set also served up hits—”Doctor My Eyes,” which begat “The Pretender,” which begat “Running on Empty,” driven by Mills’ persistent snare drum, and full vocals from the trio of singers.
As Browne joked, “The band seems to get louder, the smaller it gets.”
He returned to the adoring crowd with Steven Van Zandt’s “I Am A Patriot,” a stirring, reggae-tinged anti-affirmation song of political loyalties.
In this divided American landscape, political and otherwise, it was the perfect tone.
