$20 cover charge; sliding scale available

Forged by six-string electric bassist Michael Wilcox, this trio with saxophonist Sheldon Brown and drummer Bryan Bowman continues in the tradition of Sonny Rollins’ early explorations of the tenor sax/bass/drums format.

As a trio, they explore a wide variety of music that’s interested them over the years, from Brazilian choro, Bulgarian music and the music of Herbie Nichols to pieces by Brahms, Faure and Machaut.

Michael Wilcox has toured, performed, recorded and taught extensively, appearing on over 30 recordings, along with television, commercial and radio work. He’s played with Pickle Family Circus, The San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the Transcendental Theatre Company, as well as with Richie Cole, the Fifth Dimension, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Oakland Eastbay Symphony, Eddie Duran, Jules Broussard, Tom Coster and Larry Schneider. He also taught in the Jazz Department at San Jose State University for five years (1989-1994), and at the Jazzschool in Berkeley.

Drummer Bryan Bowman was brought up in music, his father a classical pianist and his mother, a psychologist by trade, a cellist and avid folk dancer specializing in /numerous Balkan styles. These rich and diverse influences guided his musical journey toward the study of not only the drum set and piano, but of North Indian Tabla drumming and vocal music, the folk music of Bulgaria and Macedonia, and jazz. He has performed with Eric Reed, Mary Stallings, Matt Penman, Paul McCandless, Donald “Duck” Bailey, Deron Johnson (keyboardist with Miles Davis), Mark Levine, Larry Vuckovich, Noel Jewkes, Harvey Weinapel and many others. He studied composition and music performance at The Berklee College of Music in Boston, CSU Long Beach, CSU Chico and the Ali Akbar College of Music and privately with noteworthy individual teachers.

Since 1994, woodwind multi-instrumentalist Sheldon Brown has led the Sheldon Brown Group to perform his own compositions, and more recently he formed Sheldon Brown Quintet to plumb the music of pianist/composer Herbie Nichols, and Distant Intervals, based on poetic speech melodies. He works prolifically in a variety of groups and contexts, including composing music for the the Club Foot Orchestra’s accompaniment to silent films including Metropolis, Sherlock Jr., Pandoraʼs Box, and The Hands of Orlac. He has performed internationally as a featured soloist with Cuban pianist Omar Sosa, and recorded on five of Sosaʼs albums. While with Sosa, he performed The North Sea Jazz Festival in Den Haag, New Morning in Paris, Tribute to the Love Generation in Tokyo and many others. Brown performs with numerous groups in the S.F. Bay Area, including the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, Clarinet Thing, the Darren Johnston Quintet, Goldberg, Brown, Anderson, Ian Carey Quintet + 1, Club Foot Orchestra, Laurie Antonioli, Azesu (featuring Orestes Vilato), Mike Pattonʼs Mondo Cane, Admiral Ted Brinkley’s Large Group and the Aaron Germain Quartet.

This date is presented with support from the Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund, a project of Jazz in the Neighborhood.  The GFWF subsidy of 40% of the guarantee allows for a $150 per musician guarantee tonight, 50% higher than Bird & Beckett’s normal scale on Saturday nights. We thank JitN for their support. By stipulation, there is no tip jar on GFWF dates; fair pay for an evening’s work for the San Francisco Bay Area’s professional gigging musicians is the goal. With fair pay, tips should be unnecessary to support a comfortable economic existence for these professional musicians. The gesture is symbolic, but the goal is real. Your support through your cover charge and through tax-deductible contributions to Jazz in the Neighborhood and the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project make our efforts to effect change possible.