The spot where the moon was lowest, as she went by, was off the Zinc Cliffs. We used to go out with those little rowing boats they had in those days, round and flat, made of cork. They held quite a few of us: me, Captain Vhd Vhd, his wife, my deaf cousin, and sometimes little Xlthlx – she was twelve or so at that time. On those nights the water was very calm, so silvery it looked like mercury, and the fish in it, violet-colored, unable to resist the Moon’s attraction, rose to the surface, all of them, and so did the octopuses and the saffron medusas. There was always a flight of tiny treasures – little crabs, squid, and even some weeds, light and filmy, and coral plants – that broke from the sea and ended up on the Moon, hanging down from that lime-white ceiling, or else they stayed in midair, a phosphorescent swarm we had to drive off, waving banana leaves at them. — from “The Distance of the Moon” – a story in Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics

New music for jazz sextet by the Lisa Mezzacappa Six, inspired by Italo Calvino’s stories on the history of the universe – developed in a series of four salon performances at Bird & Beckett which kicked off April 19th and continue tonight with Salon #3. Salon #4 will take place Thursday, September 13th, and the final work will be performed Saturday, November 3rd.

Aaron Bennett, tenor sax
John Finkbeiner, guitar
Mark Clifford, vibes
Tim Perkis, electronics
Lisa Mezzacappa, bass
Jordan Glenn, drums

Bookstore Residency
& Work-in-Progress Salons
4 Thursdays at 7:30 pm
April 19/May 24/July 5/Sept 13
$10 Suggested Donation

Concert Finale
Saturday, Nov 3 at 7:30pm
$20 cover charge

Bay Area bassist and composer Lisa Mezzacappa visits with her sextet for a five-concert residency beginning April 19th and ending November 3rd, to develop a new suite of music inspired by Italo Calvino’s extraordinary “Cosmicomics” stories.

Over a series of four Thursday evening salons, Lisa and her colleagues explore new music drawn from Calvino’s supremely imaginative play on incidents in the history of the universe and the invisible forces at work in the cosmos.

The salon series, which runs from April through September, concludes with a premiere of the complete work on Saturday, November 3rd.

It is said that Mezzacappa’s sensibility as a composer “embraces the full panorama of jazz sound and feeling, from bluesy grooves to abstract soundscapes, playful collective improvisation and richly layered melodies that blend electric and acoustic textures.”

Her suite of music for this same ensemble, avantNOIR, was drawn from crime novels by Hammett and Auster,  and earned a 4-1/2 star review in Downbeat Magazine in 2017. avantNOIR was performed at SFJazz as well as Bird & Beckett and other venues.

We welcome her and her colleagues back to Bird & Beckett with unbridled enthusiasm.