What’s shakin’? Litquake’s been underway in this town since late last week, and runs through Saturday’s Litcrawl. At the shop tonight, Thursday night, October 17th at 7, we’ve got poets Kim Shuck and Indira Allegra, and folksinger Ed Dang – “Cherokee Voices” – as our second Litquake event. Jerry Ferraz will host, and an open mic will follow. These voices are likely to take you by surprise, shake you up a little bit... all to the good... Friday eve, 5:30-8:00, Scott Foster brings in yet another aggregation of jazz players we’ve not heard before at Bird & Beckett– Dave Scott on trumpet, Aaron Germain on bass, Surya Prakasha on drums. For the past five or six months on these “Third Fridays” sessions, Scott’s been concocting a fresh jazz cocktail each time out-- though he didn’t have to think hard to put this one together; the four have been working as a unit for several years, and their book of tunes is pretty deep. And they’re comfortable enough with it that they’re going to pass the book around on the break and let the audience decide which tunes they should assay on the second set. “Audience Choice,” Scott says. They’re game to tackle whatever is thrown at them without premeditation, and we don’t doubt they’ll pull it off nicely, and with that “sound of surprise” Whitney Balliet or Nat Hentoff or one of those jazz pundits used to talk about... Saturday, be sure to catch that Litcrawl – mostly through the Mission as is the tradition. Streets thronged all night long with thousands of locals & literary tourists, roaming after the word, hanging from the rafters of dozens of storefronts & jamming the alleys to hear, what?! people reading what they’ve been writing? It started in San Francisco in 1999... same year we founded Bird & Beckett, as it happens... 14 years on, it’s going strong. Sleep in Sunday, then come on down to the shop at the gentle hour of 4:30... for the ensuing couple of hours, we’re offering up a quartet that’ll stroll through bop territory like they own it, and indeed they do– at least they co-own it with the many dozens of great musicians that are making a claim for this being a terrific era for San Francisco jazz. As it happens, Detroiters Harvey Robb (tenor sax) and Danny Spencer (drums) lead the charge– framed & filigreed by bassist Ron Belcher and pianist David Udolf. Top professionals playing the music they’ve loved since their teenage years. It’ll be a pleasure to hear. The last Saturday of the month, October 26th, from opening at 11 a.m. to closing at 9 p.m., we’ll offer some proof for that claim we’ve just asserted about this golden era of jazz, specifically bopcentric jazz-- that mid-century modern music that sprung up in Kansas City and New York City and Detroit and a few more hot spots in the early 1940s, when the rest of the world was busy blowing itself up. The young turks of the day had more on their minds than world war, and we’re still reaping the rewards of their feverish invention... It’ll be a rent party at Bird & Beckett, so come down, feed the buckets $20 or more, and help us catch up with some serious bills that have been proving just a bit too much for us to handle. Dozens of top musicians will be passing across the Bird & Beckett stage, lending their talents to the cause, ‘cause they love the music and they treasure this Glen Park venue that rewards their efforts with enthused and responsive audiences and true respect for what they do, for the music they play, for their skill & sheer dogged creativity! This one’s not tax-deductible, friends– it’s for that theoretically for-profit organization, the bookshop itself. Your largesse will be rewarded with a healthy bookstore for one of the sweetest neighborhoods the City can boast. Ten solid hours of non-stop bop for the bookshop, Saturday, October 26th, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Invite a jazz- and/or book-crazy friend from out of the neighborhood to see what Bird & Beckett has to offer! A couple of final sad notes-- John Lewis has passed away. Just a sweet guy out of Cincinnati, St. Louis -- I don’t rightly recollect -- but one of those spots that’ve held up in some ways despite their careless loss of guys like John. Will Segen can tell you a bit about him. One of the many who came out to San Francisco in the ’60s, a bit before my time... loved what all his comrades loved about San Francisco, I’m guessing. Free love, dope, beautiful sunsets, no race worries... well, ultimately, there are always and perennially race worries, isn’t it sad? But the rest was lovely, and you’ve got your Pacific Ocean and the waves crashing on the coast and the lovely tendrils of fog, and all the rest. So that was a bit of what I’m supposing John was about, that and jazz and psychedelia and much more, and god rest his soul... And I heard today that Duck Bailey has passed... another gentle soul, with his ride cymbal and high hat, his sticks and brushes, and his hand-painted hats, his long-past-midnight phone calls to friends, his sweet ways. Well, ok, here we are in San Francisco in 2013. Seems like a harsher world, though still the sweet people hang on. But I spoke to one yesterday, lost her foothold, will have to move to the East Bay, probably. Maybe Berkeley... Lot of people moving to West Oakland recently. Not a bad place, a rich place really, soulful, historic, cheap for now... except that each earnest, well meaning white person, of whatever color, that decides to move over there crimps the world of some black people who find themselves impinged upon, eventually forced by rising prices to move out of the way... there’s some benefit, no doubt, but obvious loss. Groovy as the young ones from wherever can make it, where does the inevitable price spiral lead? Little Miss Birdsong, follow me... time to float out to Bangladesh, perhaps, where, maybe, we’ll not be a noticeable blot on the landscape, just sojourners on a challenging horizon. See something wrong with that picture, let me know. Don’t want to hurt nobody– almost ready to turn to the task of taming – no, that’s not it – surviving in an unforgiving & squishy land, where the waters are rising... Stilts anyone? Forgive the elegiac tone... we’re still having a barrel of fun down at the bookshop every day, just you come see, and lend your gaiety, would you please!? The musicians, the writers, the books– they’ll make you feel how good it is to be alive– any so-called evidence to the contrary! Bop for the bookshop! /s/Eric, prop., since 1999! Bird & Beckett Books 653 Chenery in San Francisco’s Glen Park neighborhood
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 14:57:48 +0000
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