Pianist Grant Levin leads a quartet every 2nd Saturday in our “jazz club” series–
8-11 pm, “when lights are low…”

Tonight, Grant will be featuring reed player Noel Jewkes, with the able rhythm section assistance of Joe McKinley on bass and Rick Rivera on drums.

Classic small group jazz in an intimate venue where every note and phrase rings marvelously clear.

photo by Wylie Maercklein

Noel Jewkes is a jazz veteran known to many in the younger set from his work with Lavay Smith. He was born in Utah in 1940 and migrated to San Francisco as an adult to become one of the most revered local masters of the jazz saxophone, but only after playing for years, from the age of 12, in the family swing orchestra headed by his mother and father.  The Jewkes Orchestra traveled widely in the region, delivering a swinging and danceable beat to audiences of hip Indians, farmers and city slickers in rural assembly halls, lakeside resorts and downtown hotels.

Talented beyond measure on piano and trumpet as well as the various reeds, Noel is well known to young cognoscenti for his work in the Red Hot Skillet Lickers, but his renown stretches far beyond that– and for good reason.  His affinity with John Coltrane’s music belies the associations some have from hearing him in swing and jump ensembles, bop aggregations, etc. A flexible and insatiably adventurous modern master.