653 Chenery Street
in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood

1-415-586-3733
[email protected]

Open to walk-in trade and browsing
Tuesday to Sunday
noon to six

 

Live Streams every weekend!
Refresh your browser
to catch a show in progress!
Visit our Facebook page or
YouTube channel!

But nothing beats being in the room
with the music & the musicians!

Friday, November 9th – 5:30-8:00 pm
Kurt Ribak Quartet
jazz in the bookshop
every Friday since 2002
$10-20 suggested donation per solvent adult

With a lot of help from you, the audience, from neighborhood donors to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project, a 501(c)3 organization, and from  Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund, we’ll pay this quartet a “living wage” of $150 per musician this evening!

That’s a lot of heavy lifting for the bookshop on a Friday evening, even with the help of Jazz in the Neighborhood… so dig deep if you believe jazz music should be heard live in Glen Park and if you believe our local professional jazz musicians should be paid more than peanuts for their prodigious talent, experience & effort!

But the doors are open to all regardless of their bank accounts–we want everyone to enjoy this music and support it with your ears–so don’t pay more than you can afford!

Tonight, bandleader Kurt Ribak brings a program of originals for your listening pleasure!

Lincoln Adler, saxophone
Greg Sankovich, keyboards
Kurt Ribak, bass, vocals
Randy Lee Odell, drums

Kurt says what he wants you to take away from his tunes is this scenario:

 “Charles Mingus meets The Meters.
They go to Duke Ellington’s house to jam,
and Cachao and Thelonious Monk sit in.”

Kurt has shared the stage with circus performers, preachers and fire-breathing strippers, but never all three at once. He has performed in venues ranging from Yoshi’s to a club where someone stashed a loaded .45 in his bass bag. Kurt rarely plays there anymore.

Kurt met pianist Greg Sankovich at UC Berkeley’s UC Jazz Ensembles and reconnected there with fellow San Francisco Boys Chorus alumnus, saxophonist Lincoln Adler. Greg and Lincoln co-produced his last records, “Onward” and “I Got One More!” Drummer Randy Lee Odell has been a frequent collaborator through the years and is a key member of the quartet.

As a youth, after a battle with tendinitis, Kurt won scholarships to Berklee College of Music in Boston for undergraduate work. He spent many hours mastering the styles of bassists Paul Chambers, Ray Brown, and Charles Mingus and graduated with top honors. At Berklee he learned he loved composition and songwriting. Early tunes reflect a strong Thelonious Monk influence, while others reflect his love of the great bassist/composer/bandleader Charles Mingus. Later tunes bring to mind Horace Silver, Lee Morgan and the South African composer Abdullah Ibrahim.

Kurt’s recordings are played on KCSM-FM, KPFA, KZSC, KZFR, KKUP, San Diego’s Jazz 88, PRI and other jazz stations. He has led his group at venues throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, including sold-out appearances at Yoshi’s and performances at San Jose Jazz Festival, Nor-Cal Jazz Festival, Fillmore Street Jazz Festival, and Blue Note Napa.

The Kurt Ribak Quartet will be featured next summer at the SFJAZZ Center in the San Francisco Jazz Festival.

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The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project

Our events are put on under the umbrella of the nonprofit Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project (the "BBCLP"). That's how we fund our ambitious schedule of 300 or so concerts and literary events every year.

The BBCLP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit...
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The Independent Musicians Alliance

Gigging musicians! You have nothing to lose but your lack of a collective voice to achieve fair wages for your work!
The IMA can be a conduit for you, if you join in to make it work.

https://www.independentmusiciansalliance.org/

Read more here - Andy Gilbert's Feb 25 article about the IMA from KQED's site

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