which way west? Sunday concert series.
All ages welcome!
No cover charge, but your generous donations
make it possible for us to pay the musicians.

Sunday, October 20th – 4:30-6:30 pm:
Harvey Robb, sax; David Udolf, piano;
Ron Belcher, bass; Danny Spencer, drums.

Harvey Robb, tenor sax, has deep Detroit roots — where he grew up in the late 1950s sneaking into the jazz clubs & more legitimately gaining access to other venues to breathe the air filled with the cascading music of the likes of Yusef Lateef, Barry Harris and Elvin Jones.  These jazz legends, along with Curtis Fuller, Pepper Adams, Doug Watkins, Sir Roland Hanna and many others, were able to perfect their art in an industrial city where people headed for the late shift or coming off the swing shift could make the cash registers ring all night long — just the excuse the club owners needed to justify late and long hours filled with music.

Harvey came out to California in the radical ’60s, found a brief berth with the Mime Troupe and then a 20-year residency with the Pickle Family Circus, driving cabs, becoming a serious jazz musician himself in the 1970s, inspired by the playing of local legend Noel Jewkes–  leading to constant gigging and a long and fruitful stint with Lavay Smith’s Red Hot Skillet Likkers, where he played alongside Noel, Allen Smith and Vince Catolica and other seasoned veterans that gave that band its rich swing & sassy bite.  He’s also taught for more than a decade at San Francisco’s Community Music Center.

We’re happy to hear him lead a quartet at Bird & Beckett on Sunday, the 20th, in the company of superb musicians David Udolf on piano, Ron Belcher on bass and fellow Detroiter Danny Spencer on drums.  These well-traveled players are among the very top musicians in town, something we’re getting used to experiencing at this little out-of-the-way bookshop cum jazz spot.