Home from college in the fervid summer of 1968, Dave Eshelman was determined to put theory into practice.
The world was aflame with revolution, unrest and political violence, but the 20-year-old trombonist and budding arranger had his heart set on a far gentler agenda. Recruiting a bevy of veteran musicians, he wanted to present an evening of big band jazz to a hometown audience in Palo Alto. It was his first foray into a musical realm in which he’s thrived for nearly six decades.
A local paper saw the gig as part of a larger musical wave, writing that, “Big band jazz, making a strong comeback throughout the country, is staging its own revival on the local scene thanks to Dave Eshelman and his talented musical colleagues.”
The writer may have been mistaken about a big band renaissance, but Eshelman is still on mission, and he opens a run of gigs with his Jazz Garden Big Band by returning to Palo Alto for his first concert there in 58 years on Friday. The band is presenting a free concert at Stanford’s Dinkelspiel Auditorium at 7:30 p.m.
Looking back at his younger self, Eshelman confesses he’s impressed by his moxie. “I think, ‘Jeez, I was 20-years-old and did that?’ At the time I didn’t feel like it was anything out of the ordinary,” said Eshelman, who also brings his ensemble to the Jazzschool in Berkeley on Saturday and the Los Gatos Jewish Community Center on Sunday afternoon (as part of “Cold Snap,” a double bill with the West Valley College Jazz Band).
Eshelman credits the late trumpeter Herb “Doc” Patnoe, who founded a popular jazz program at De Anza College in 1968, with supplying him with big band charts and contacts to fill the sections.
“He gave me lists of musicians, saying these guys want to play,” Eshelman said. “I got on the phone and started making calls and everybody said yes. I was just having lunch with Dann Zinn the other day, telling him they’re still saying ‘yes,’ so I’m going to keep calling them.”
None of the journeyman musicians who joined him at the Cubberley High School auditorium in 1968 will be on hand for this weekend’s shows. But the Jazz Garden Big Band, which Eshelman launched in 1978 at downtown San Jose’s Eulipia Café, features a cadre of brilliant players, including guitarist Randy Vincent, trumpeters Erik Jekabson and Mike Olmos, and pianist Colin Hogan.
Several members have been with him since 1978, including baritone saxophonist Bob Farrington, who anchors a section with Dann Zinn, Bob Kenmotsu, Kasey Knudsen and Mary Fettig. Fettig joined the band for the first of its four albums, 1982’s “The Jazz Garden,” and has been in the fold ever since.
“We’ve actually been buds since I was 19, when Dave was a grad student at Cal State Northridge and I was a freshman at UCLA,” said Fettig, a first-call freelancer who recently finished a run in the pit band of Broadway San Jose’s “Some Like It Hot” at the Center for Performing Arts.
“He’s just crazy clever. With Dave you know the writing is going to be really good. The different things he comes up with keeps us on our toes. Every part in the band is critical and interesting.”
Part of what makes Eshelman’s work with Jazz Garden so impressive is that it’s never been his primary focus. A devoted educator, he’s mentored generations of musicians at San Jose City College, Cal State East Bay, and the Jazzschool, where his Studio Band has earned numerous national awards.
Out of the classroom, he’s consorted with jazz giants from tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and vocalist Joe Williams to guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Peter Erskine. He’s particularly proud of the work he did with Michael Brecker, including transcribing the late tenor sax titan’s solos on EWI (electronic wind instrument).
“We had him out as a soloist at Cal State Hayward and played pieces from every era of his career,” Eshelman recalled. “On the EWI solo, he said, ‘Did you arrange that? You’re sick.’ Now they use it at Berklee in an orchestration class.”
That piece, “Original Rays” from Brecker’s eponymous 1987 debut solo album, is part of the Jazz Garden program, along with a tribute to recently departed trumpet star Chuck Mangione, and a new arrangement of Jobim’s “Águas de Março” inspired by the composer’s classic duet with Elis Regina. The concerts are billed as “Jazz Garden Big Band Presents Music of the Stars,” but it’s the band itself in the spotlight.
While Eshelman is introducing several new charts, returning to Palo Alto “is like a bookend,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed looking back and seeing what I accomplished at that age. Not saying it was great, but we did some nice things. I was really fortunate people responded the way they did.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
DAVE ESHELMAN
When & where: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14 at Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University, free, events.stanford.edu; 8 p.m. Nov. 15 at The Jazzschool, Berkeley, $30, jazzschool.org; 2 p.m. Nov. 16 at Los Gatos Jewish Community Center, $30; www.westvalley.edu/news/2025/cold-snap-jazz-concert.html