Grant Levin, piano.
Chris Amberger, bass.
Jon Frank, drums.

$20 cover charge (cash at the door, please) / byob.
Students $10. Kids free.
For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733.

The Jon Frank Trio plays standards and jazz versions of Jewish songs. The trio has built a solid rapport over the past several years, and features one of the hidden gems of San Francisco jazz, the pianist Grant Levin, and a veteran bassist who cut his teeth with Art Blakey.

Bassist Chris Amberger came of age in Oakland in the late ’60s, picking up the instrument in high school and penetrating the East Bay folk and blues scene alongside his sister, a singer and guitarist. He reached a high level on the bass in jazz while a student under the tutelage of George Duke at Oakland’s Merritt College from 1967 to 1969. He first recorded in 1968, as a member of the Now Creative Arts Jazz Ensemble on their debut album, and learned the ropes of the gigging jazz profession in those formative years from legendary musicians including drummer Smiley Winters. Meanwhile, he was also on the Haight Street scene, playing with Janis Joplin, T. Bone Walker and others, and in North Beach recording ad jingles in the Columbus Tower (now known as the Sentinel Building), no doubt crossing paths in the hallways with fellow bassist Dean Reilly, then in the employ of the building’s owners, the Kingston Trio.

In the fall of 1969, Chris headed for Berklee School of Music on a full ride scholarship from Downbeat Magazine, and in addition to his studies with Gary Burton and other greats, he was immersed in the Boston avant garde jazz scene playing with the likes of Kenny Dorham and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, then traveled upon graduation through Europe and Africa, joining the latin fusion band Bombolè and touring with Cal Tjader, Rosemary Clooney and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, playing a concert with the Messengers at the June 1976 Ljubljana Jazz Festival in Slovenia, that was recorded and commercially released. Back in North America, he toured in Canada and the U.S. with George Shearing. Read more on Chris and his amazing career in this profile by writer Iris Rowlee.

In the five decades since those exploits, Chris has been a formidable element in the Northern California jazz scene — as a bandstand and studio colleague of the multitude of great veteran jazz talents who make the region their home base, and as a major influence on countless young jazz players finding their way through the clubs, studios and concert halls and onto the jazz road.

One such young talent, the pianist Grant Levin,  met Chris when the bassist was judging a student competition at the University of Nevada at Reno where Grant was developing his art. Grant went on to a productive period teaching at Chico State before deciding to head for San Francisco, with Chris helping him get established here. Didn’t take much though, as Grant quickly proved himself a top-tier, remarkably and uniquely talented jazz pianist, a hidden treasure, as you’ll hear tonight.

As for the trio’s leader, the drummer Jon Frank took to jazz young, taught for four decades in the SFUSD, retiring in 2018 after 26 years directing the Hoover Middle School Orchestra, and is enjoying a productive and satisfying third chapter in the music. A mentor as well as an educator and musician, he leads a weekly jam session with his son, the preternaturally talented trumpeter Noah Frank, at the Ocean Ale House in San Francisco’s Excelsior District. During Jon’s time at Hoover, he prepared many students to audition for the San Francisco Community Music Center’s Young Musicians Project with great success, and in 2007, he established a scholarship program for CMC students that reached endowed status after Jon ‘s retirement from teaching. With this endowment, the CMC scholarship, named for Jon’s parents as the Sid and Iris Frank Memorial Scholarship, has achieved active status in perpetuity.

Meanwhile, the trio swings like crazy and goes deep. Do come!