jazz in the bookshop is our long-running Friday evening jazz shindig… now celebrating it’s 12th year!  Nearly 600 consecutive Fridays of live jazz in an intimate independent book shop.

Since the beginning, drummer Jimmy Ryan has been on the scene, and he now leads a sizzling jazz quintet — the Bird & Beckett Bebop Band — on the second Friday of every month.  Tonight, Henry Hung, trumpet, and Danny Brown, tenor sax, make up the front line, with Don Alberts on piano and Aaron Cohn on bass joining Jimmy in the rhythm section.

Jimmy & Don have both been on the San Francisco jazz scene since about 1960 when Don was house pianist at Jimbo’s Bop City (in the building that now houses Marcus Books) and Jimmy was a frequent performer there alongside the likes of the late great Bishop Norman Williams…

Marcus Books is marching on — thriving really, despite attempts to squeeze them out of their space by the folks who recently acquired the building.  Thriving or not, they can always use more love and support.  Drop by and say hello, and buy a book or two!

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has just today (11/6) approved the City’s Preservation Commission’s decision to bestow historic landmark status on Marcus Books, the nation’s oldest black-owned bookstore!  With its roots in the Fillmore District printing business and bookshop founded by Raye Richardson and her husband, the late Julian Richardson, in 1960, Marcus took its current name in the early 1970s and has occupied its Fillmore Street building since 1981.  The Fillmore Street store and its sister store in Oakland are still owned by the Richardson family, with the San Francisco store managed by Raye & Julian’s daughter, Karen Johnson.  San Francisco Supervisor London Breed has noted that, “This bookstore is not just a book store; it’s part of our community, part of our history.”

Marcus Books is at 1712 Fillmore, just a block north of Geary Boulevard – (415) 346-4222.  For a deeper understanding of the store’s history and importance to the culture, read more at http://www.marcusbookstores.com/history.html.