Come out for our monthly “student-centric” jazz jam session!

If you’re game to play, bring your instrument(s) and be ready to call a tune. The session will start after a short jazz set by this month’s session hosts, an octet from San Francisco’s Community Music Center.

Just want to come out and experience the fun? Bring your ears and a little cash to help us pay the CMC combo. Jazz in the Neighborhood is underwriting part of the festivities to lighten the load, but we’ll need your help as well.

Whether you’re coming to play or just to listen, you’re an integral part of the afternoon.

The Community Music Center, with campuses in the Mission District on Capp Street and in the Richmond District on 30th Avenue, has been teaching students of all ages and income strata the pleasures, rudiments and intricacies of music across the genres for over a century. We’re particularly interested in providing the CMC’s jazz students with the opportunity to take the stage at Bird & Beckett. Once again, we’ve invited a jazz combo from the CMC directed by faculty member Max Miller-Loran to perform a short set and then lead a jam session geared to student musicians. 

Max Miller-Loran, trumpet
Robert Goodwin, alto sax
Diane Aurelius, tenor sax and voice
Elizabeth DiCarli, tenor sax
Fumio Wada, guitar
Damon Matthews, piano
Ellen Rosenthal, bass and voice
Alex Moritz, drums

This is our monthly “student-centric” jam session which takes place on the first Sunday of each month featuring student groups as hosts and individual student musicians of all ages from all around the Bay Area as participants.

Do you like what we’re doing? Support it with a contribution to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project. Audience revenues are just an important drop in the bucket. We need you, if you have the wherewithal!

25% of the honorarium we promise the student musicians in this series is underwritten by Jazz in the Neighborhood, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that seeks to to improve the economics of jazz performance in the Bay Area by presenting affordable concerts, paying musicians a guaranteed wage, and supporting the work of established and aspiring jazz artists. We  very much appreciate their support and urge you to visit their website (linked above) to learn how you can support their efforts!

We also seek your contribution to help us keep this series going, and are actively looking for individuals who see the value of supporting this activity on an ongoing basis — donors who understand the value of granting those eager to learn music at a deep level broad access to music instruction and opportunities to perform publicly while still in school. Email [email protected] if you can help!

Please join us for an enjoyable afternoon of music and a chance to encourage musicians who hope to become proficient amateurs and accomplished professionals in a crucial cultural realm.