It’s a Tuesday night at Piedmont Gardens, a continuing care retirement community in Oakland, where around two dozen residents are gathered inside a lounge on the 11th floor. It’s a special night for the residents as they are about to be treated to a live jazz show courtesy of the Bob Roden Quintet .
Bob Roden and his bandmates, Ron Jackson, Mark Rossi (filling in for Larry Walter), Jamie Dowd, and Richard Freeman, have been playing shows not only at various traditional music venues around the Bay Area since the quintet formed eight years ago, but also at retirement communities in Oakland, Albany and other cities nearby since 2019.
Roden calls Piedmont Gardens “home base” for the band. So much so that the quintet will play its fourth New Year’s Eve show there this December. The care f