Brian Ho is having a good month. Just back from a run of high-profile gigs in Taiwan, the pianist and organist has been representing the South Bay as part of the SJZ Collective, a prodigious group assembled by San Jose Jazz playing original arrangements of modern jazz classics by Thelonious Monk. Bringing together many of the top improvisers in Silicon Valley, the conspicuously diverse sextet debuted at Café Stritch in February. Spearheaded by drummer Wally Schnalle, the Collective also features saxophonist Oscar Pangilinan, bassist Saúl Sierra, guitarist Hristo Vitchev and trumpeter John L. Worley, Jr., and judging by videos posted from the Taichung Jazz Festival, the band should be widely heard at home, too.
This week, Ho is joining forces with a different top-shelf combo in a band with a shifting moniker, depending on where they’re playing. Esteemed San Jose guitarist Mason Razavi leads the quartet Thursday at Oakland’s Sound Room with Ho, South Bay mainstay Jason Lewis on drums and tenor saxophonist Anton Schwartz, who started his career in the Bay Area before relocating to Seattle.
On Friday, the same combo performs at Walnut Creek’s Impulse Room as the Brian Ho Quartet, featuring Schwartz, and Saturday at the Black Cat in San Francisco, the players get equal billing, with Schwartz listed first. A quartet by any other name would swing as hard, as long as these players are on the stem.
Here’s hoping Ho brings some of the Monk material into the fold, as those sumptuous ballads and chugging, angular tunes unfold along unexpected lines when rendered on organ.The same band plays San Jose’s Café Stritch on Nov. 9.
Details: 8 p.m. Oct. 25 at The Sound Room, Oakland; $15-$20; 510-496-4180, soundroom.org.; 8 p.m. Oct. 26 at Impulse Room, Walnut Creek; $18; 925-476-5040, www.impulseroom.com.; 6:30 p.m. Oct. 27 at The Black Cat, San Francisco; $15/$20; 415-358-1999, blackcatsf.com.