Mark Levine wrote the book on jazz piano… specifically, The Jazz Piano Book (Sher Music, 2005 — but originally published in 1989), and has been instrumental in the education of many thousands of  jazz pianists… He himself studied in Boston and New York with legendary figures Hal Overton, Herb Pomeroy and Jaki Byard. Along the way, Mark has shared the bandstand and recording studio with, among others, Woody Shaw, Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard, Wallace Roney, Tito Puente, Milt Jackson, James Moody, Art Farmer, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Fortune, Eddie Harris, Stefon Harris, Eddie Henderson, Conrad Herwig, Clark Terry, Ingrid Jensen, Charlie Rouse, Bobby Watson, Chet Baker, Philip Harper, Mark Murphy, Art Pepper, Julian Priester, Bobby Shew, Steve Turre, Madeline Eastman, Enrique Pla and Poncho Sanchez… with particularly fruitful and intense extended stints with trumpeter Blue Mitchell and sax giants Joe Henderson, Harold Land and Dave Liebman, and with with latin jazz…

Two Laureates on one stage… and you in the open mic… Mike Tuggle, Sonoma County Poet Laureate Emeritus (2008-9), is celebrating the upcoming publication of The Motioning In, New & Selected Poems by Petaluma River Press due this spring.  He is also the author of Absolute Elsewhere (2004, Philos Press) & The Singing Itself (2009, Running Wolf Press) & two chapbooks, Cazadero Poems (1994, Floating Island Press), and What Lures The Foxes (2011, Kelly’s Cove Press).  He was the recipient of a Sonoma Community Foundation Award in poetry, a Dickens Award in fiction, and the Oberon Poetry Prize. Bill Vartnaw, Sonoma County Poet Laureate Emeritus (2012-3), is a veteran of the San Francisco poetry open mic scene; he established Taurean Horn Press in 1974, which has published the works of several SF poets.  He is the author of two poetry books, In Concern: for Angels (1984, Taurean Horn Press) & Suburbs of my…

Eugene Pliner, piano Adam Gay, bass Omar Aran, drums A classic piano trio, led by one of the key players on the local scene for decades, often heard at Les Joulins Jazz Bistro. Eugene began his musical career at an early age in Riga, Latvia (formerly Russia). In his early twenties, he migrated to the U.S. where he continued to study piano at the new England Conservatory in Boston under the direction of Ron Blake. He also studied with Andy LaVerne and Richie Bierach in New York. Eugene’s first professional gigs were with the multi-instrumentalist, Ira Sullivan, and Gary Campbell (tenor sax), professor at the University of Miami in Florida. He has recorded in Paris with Stephen McCraven, the prominent drummer in the Archie Shepp band. Eugene’s most recent recording project was called “Memoire d’Antibes,” featuring a program of original compositions.

Smith Dobson, tenor sax     and vibraphone Luke Westbrook, guitar Noah Schenker, bass Hamir Atwal, drums Smith Dobson debuts a new quartet to explore some of his own writing and aspects of the jazz canon that inform his sensibility. Without doubt, Smith is one of the key players on the San Francisco jazz scene — holding forth at Bird & Beckett every first Saturday of the month.

Come on out to our 2nd Sunday Surf-a-billy Swing Time Dance Party! This month, it’s The Pleasure Palace, featuring the guitarero of North Beach, Ned Boynton; organ grinder Lorenzo Farrell and drummer/raconteur Rolf Wilkinson!  You’re going to love this little band and their swinging little repertoire. They’re beyond category, so we won’t assay to pigeonhole them here!  Come and out and enjoy yourself. We’ll ply you with Bloody Marys & Irish Coffees if that’s to your liking…  orange juice if that’s more your style..

Walker Talks!  A monthly series of ruminations by Walker Brents on diverse subjects — from individual writers and philosophers, to bits of mythology, epic tales and cultural turning points.   Today, Walker will plumb the subject of the Greek mystery religions- cults that persisted for centuries and even millennia, each with its own secret rituals, celebrations and belief systems, each centered variously on the likes of Dionysus, Orpheus, Demeter, Persephone, each open only to initiates… …religions that arose as the history of the gods became the history of the soul.