Still, the staffer views the planned S2 gig as more than a bit gratuitous.
"I truly believe the mayor has the best intentions with his Quiet Storm," says the staffer. "But the Sting thing is ludicrous. It's as though Nickels thinks he's a big- shot concert promoter instead of mayor. Remember, this is a guy who ran on fixing potholes and making the stoplights change on time."
Portrait of the mayor by Tim Silbaugh
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Boyhood friend Wilson disagrees.
"The Quiet Storm is just the sort of big-vision thing I always expected Greg to roll out at some point," says Wilson. "The only thing I'm surprised about is that it took him this long."
Others see Nickels' Quiet Storm as purely political.
"He's gotten pretty banged up over his perceived attacks on the city's nightlife," says Hunter Shingleton, a professor of political science at Central Washington University. "He wants to find a way to counteract that impression without pissing off his core constituency, which is white, affluent, middle-aged homeowners who go to bed before 10. So to me, aggressively fostering an underground smooth-jazz scene seems like a canny example of Clinton-esque triangulation."
And yet, when one sees the mayor's face light up like a Christmas tree as Basia launches into a 30-second scat scale or Tisdale nails a riff from the Euge Groove hit "Chillaxin" on his bass, it's impossible to deny that this is a venture fueled in some part by passion. Then there's a subcomponent of the La Rustica project that Ceis calls "Storm Front": At every star-studded performance, a lone table is set aside for student musicians ranging in age from junior high to junior college.
While many of these young patrons are already promising musicians in their own right, Nickels' Alki sessions have exposed them to another level of the smooth-jazz game. To wit, Seattle Central Community College freshman Tyler Jurevicius blew out a tight tenor sax solo during Gerald Levert's "Casanova" at his Oct. 2 gig, while on Oct. 23, a bespectacled 300-pound Franklin High crooner named Bobby "BoBo" Pitts sang the Nat King Cole part on "Unforgettable" when daughter Natalie's hologram projector malfunctioned. These youngsters, says Ceis, are sowing the seeds for an imminent indie smooth-jazz explosion, the scale of which the city has not witnessed since the halcyon days of grunge.
All of which makes Wilson, who's sat in on a handful of the Alki sessions, proud of the grown-up version of the chubby, carefree kid who used to live for Topps trading cards and George Benson.
"All year long, I've been reading headlines about how Greg is anti-nightlife, about how Greg is anti-music—thinking all along: If only they knew what I know," says Wilson, polishing off his third bourbon at the Kingfish. "Now everyone will realize just what a smooth cat they've put in charge of this city."
mseely@seattleweekly.com
