Live Jazz on Sunday / Poets on Monday

Sunday, July 15 – 4:30 to 6:30 pm

The Noel Jewkes Quartet

Noel Jewkes (reeds), Grant Levin (piano), Adam Gay (bass), Bryan Bowman (drums) — joined for a tune on each set by vocalist Marky Quayle

Noel Jewkes has been a mainstay on the Northern California jazz scene since he blew in from the wilds of Utah in the early 1960s–his longest hiatus was probably a couple of weeks round about last Christmas, when he consented to a little heart surgery.  Soon enough, he was back on the bandstand.  His weekly sessions at Mauro’s Sausalito Seahorse Musica each Tuesday draws top musicians week in and week out, always glad to play with a man who’s long been considered one of the best musicians in the region.

In Noel’s five decades here on the coast, he’s been called on to work with singers from Rosemary Clooney to Billy Eckstein to Jon Hendricks, in blues-rock bands with Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenitis, in the all-female rock band Ace of Cups (after it augmented the line up with a few male players, that is), in the jump blues outfit led by Lavay Smith and in countless other top-drawer jobs, always in the first rank of hired guns.

Noel plays all the styles there are & is held in awe for his cool legato aura, making ambitious trad, swing & jump bands always anxious to add them to their line-ups.  But it’s in small combo settings of his own making that his thoroughly modern intensity shines through most brilliantly.  Hear him at this link for a taste of his unaccompanied tenor sax playing on the classic tune “Autumn in New York.”  Then listen to him in a small group setting playing Gershwin’s “The Man I Love.“  His own compositions richly varied — at turns, challenging and complex or tender and lushly expressive.  The hard driving tunes particularly underscore his point that good jazz is a wild music, and that’s where Noel likes to take it.

With the players he’s bringing to the Bird & Beckett bandstand this Sunday, you’ll hear what this musician’s musician has to offer that’s unparalleled in these parts.  They’ve recorded two cds of material together in the past year, and step up to the task at hand without hesitation.  Don’t miss it.

Monday, July 16 – 7 pm

Carlos Suarez and Jerry Martien

poets!

first & third Monday of each month
hosted by Jerry Ferraz
open mic follows

Jerry Martien lives on the northern California coast near Elk River, a tributary of Humboldt Bay. Bookstore clerk, carpenter, writing teacher and environmental activist, he is the author of Shell Game: A True Account of Beads and Money in North America, a collection of poems, Pieces in Place, several poetry chapbooks including The School of Doors (Tangram), and a monograph, Out Looking For Lew: Bioregional Poetics and the Legacy of Lew Welch (Big Bridge).

Carlos Suarez was born in Parana, Argentina. He lives in San Francisco’s Mission district, and he has been a factory worker, photojournalist, anthropologist and translator, author of Rivermarks, Summer Oranges, Between Rivers, and the collection of stories The Man Who Drove His Alfa Romeo Only Once.  We know Carlos as a brilliant raconteur, impassioned lover of jazz deeply steeped in the music, and fierce observer of the political follies swirling about us.

Friday, July 20 — 5:30-8:00 pm

The Third Quartet

jazz in the bookshop

live jazz every Friday

Chuck Peterson (tenor sax), Scott Foster (guitar), Don Prell (bass) and Ron Marabuto (drums) make up our regular third-Friday-of-the-month ensemble —playing a hard swinging, bop-derived music that goes down like a good whiskey.

Chuck, Scott and Don have been anchoring our jazz series since its beginning in 2002 — that’s the three of them on the left side of the photo, joined by Bill Perkins, Jimmy Ryan and Rick Elmore back in the old shop on Diamond, where the group eventually swelled to as many as eight musicians, and there was only room for 12 chairs for the audience.

No matter the size of the band or the size of the crowd, it’s always a good time in the neighborhood at the end of the work week and the beginning of the weekend when the band swings into action!