When a well-known musician shows up at a big rock gig, they’re just a face in the crowd, at best fodder for the next day’s gossip column. But when the same thing happens at a jazz club, it creates an electrifying tension—everyone’s wondering, Will they sit it? The latter scenario played out last night at Zebulon, as veteran saxist Joe McPhee (second from left above)—a veritable great white in the small pond of free jazz—strolled in toting his horn case right before the Scandinavian group The Thing, his frequent collaborators, began playing.

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