jazz in the bookshop
every Friday since 2002!

all ages welcome! $10 per adult suggested donation

Friday, October 21st, 5:30 to 8:00 pm

Aran-Foster-Peterson-Prell

The third Friday of each month, three founders of our nine-year old series of Friday jazz parties join forces with a guest drummer to keep the bebop flame burning bright on Chenery Street.

Tenor player Chuck Peterson proposed the series back in the fall of 2002, telling us he’d make sure we had a band every single week if we’d promise to provide the venue — and both sides to that pact have kept their word.

Chuck brought bassist Don Prell into the mix, and Don brought in guitarist Scott Foster, and so it’s gone ever since.  In fact, the band grew to eight pieces in the tiny performance space at the “old” location down on Diamond Street before splintering into more manageable units that make up the current rotation of four and five-piece combos.  For this date, they’re joined by drummer Omar Aran, who plays with a wonderfully understated and crisp swing that sets the music free.

Friday, October 28th, 5:30 to 8:00 pm

The Chuck Peterson Quintet
with Dorothy Lefkovits

When Chuck carried his tenor saxophone down to the Bay Area from Portland’s Reed College in about 1950, he fell in with a lot of young cats who were mad to play bebop, congregating around San Francisco State College (that would have been at the old campus, on Buchanan at Market Street).  His compatriots in this band all have similar 60-year tenure in the music.

For the fourth Friday of each month, Chuck Peterson has assembled a like-minded crew of jazz veterans, including Howie Dudune on reeds, Glen Deardorff on guitar, Dean Reilly on bass, and Tony Johnson on drums.

And each month they invite the wonderful Dorothy Lefkovits to the bandstand to sing a few of the tunes that she does so well…

The fourth Friday of every month is their date to swing like mad, and to swing so sweetly, on the Bird & Beckett bandstand…