Noel Jewkes on stage with Grant Levin, in a quartet featuring Eugene Warren on bass and Mark Lee on drums, July 12, 2015 at Bird & Beckett Books.

Reed player Noel Jewkes is featured at jazz club! when pianist Grant Levin leads his quartet through two sets of classic and contemporary small combo repertoire.  Bassist Chris Amberger and drummer Malachi Whitson keep the pulse strong!

jazz club! when lights are low… every Saturday night at Bird & Beckett, 7:30-10 pm.  Grant leads the band every second Saturday night.

Duo! every 2nd & 4th Saturday afternoon, 2-4 pm, when Grant Levin invites a duo partner to the stage for two sets of lovely interplay. This week: bassist Chris Amberger shares the honors.

Grant says he ‘s probably played with Chris more often than any other single musician! Their rapport is huge and their story goes back quite a ways.  Chris’s own career in jazz is much longer and wonderfully storied. He moved to Oakland as a kid with his mom, learning directly from great players of the 1960s, was present at the birth of free jazz, toured with Art Blakey, recorded with Rosemary Clooney… and much more. In the course of the Duo! session, we’ll get Grant and Chris to give you a bit of their history between tunes, and to clue you in to some of the obscure history of jazz in the Bay Area and its players.