Post-Thanksgiving, on Sunday, November 28, we’ll open the shop and clear the stage at 5pm for a three-hour all-comers jam session — students and old hands alike! Professional musicians, come on out. Live streamed on our facebook page or youtube channel

No remuneration, except for the Keith Saunders Trio, with Eric Markowitz on bass and Akira Tana on drums — and what a trio that is, conducting the jam session! We’ll pay them each the JITN leader’s rate of $150 plus a 10% leader’s fee. They’re all leaders. Jazz is a team sport. (And, a profession. Let there by no doubt.)

Everybody else? Come on out, if you have a vax card and a mask. We’ll lay in some beer and the finest water one can buy for a few bucks a bottle, and we’ll let you negotiate your way to the stage with your colleagues and the trio.

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The session is a long-standing jazz tradition, and we’re toying with making it part of ours (our tradition, that is). Your enthusiasm will be the clue we’ll need to decide whether or not to institute it here on an ongoing basis.

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This post-Thanksgiving Day session is an extra date alongside the student showcase/session series that we presented for several years pre-pandemic and have reestablished this past few months, dubbed “Tomorrow’s Jazz Today: young players, testing the traditions.”

Each month, a jazz combo comprising students from a local college or high school opens the program followed by a student jam session led by a professional trio. Co-produced and underwritten by Jazz in the Neighborhood and Bird & Beckett Books, the series pays students in the first-Sunday combos a small stipend and pays the professional musicians hosting a guaranteed fair wage.

On December 5, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Roots, Jazz & American Music B.Mus. degree program fields the last in a sequence of four combos.  In 2022, we’ll open it up to the many schools all around the Bay Area that have solid jazz education programs. Educators, please contact us! We’ll reach out, but need you to reach in.

We’ll continue the series on the first Sunday of each month throughout 2022, resuming in February.
(The first Sunday in January is Avotcja’s, as it has been for years, to celebrate her dedication to la verdad de la musica.)

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All young (or youngish) students aspiring to a career in jazz — including those who are learning on the bandstands and public squares — are encouraged to turn out for the jam session that concludes each outing. No advance sign up required, but do please call the shop for information — 415-586-3733. Ask for Eric.

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