Noel’s first San Francisco quartet — featuring Flip Nunez on piano, Fred Marshall on bass and Jerry Granelli on drums — backed Jon Hendricks for this 1963 recording at the Trident in Sausalito.

Noel Jewkes, reeds
Randy Vincent, guitar
Chris Amberger, bass
Josh Setala, drums

$20 adult cover charge Under 12 free Teens and music students, $5-10 sliding scale

read an insightful article on Noel
from SF Classical Voice
at this link.

Noel Jewkes has long been known as Dr.  Legato by his legion of admirers and praised as a disciple in his playing of Pres, the President, Lester Young, so dubbed by Lady Day. He’s been an acknowledged master of the art of swing on tenor saxophone and all manner of reeds for six decades.

For this Bird & Beckett date, he’s assembled a beautiful band that spans generations — right down to the young drummer John Setala, just now finishing up his B.Mus. degree in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Roots, Jazz and American Music program, and already turning heads in the local professional jazz scene..   

Bassist Chris Amberger is a veteran player who found his jazz legs in Oakland in the late 1960s and traveled in a 1980s incarnation of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. He’s been featured at Bird & Beckett countless times and is Noel’s go-to bassist. Guitarist Randy Vincent is untouchable in his prowess on his instrument. He arrived from Florida in 1980, and has played with a long list of jazz masters and in venues far and wide in the four-plus decades since. He’s on faculty at Sonoma State University.