Cold Eye, Warm Heart -- Jazz & Literature at Bird & Beckett Books - 5/29 - 6/1

5 events in 4 days commencing Friday May 29, 2009 --
and that's with Saturday off!!
(we planned it that way so that book buyers could be unmolested by aurally manifested culture at least one day this weekend... oh, except for the records we spin to keep ourselves amused)

So here's the scoop:

Friday evening (5/29/09), starting at 5:30 pm, it's jazz in the bookshop (like every Friday since late 2002)... a neighborhood party without end... this week, with a special twist: the jazz will overlap and be followed by a book release party.

First, it's the Russo Alberts Trio. They call themselves "The Bad Boys" -- grizzled vets though they may be. Don Alberts is a hard-driving bop pianist, composer, poet, novelist and historian of the jazz scene; and he and his long-time associate, bassist Don Russo have found a sympathetic spirit in the internationally seasoned drummer Art Lewis -- no stranger to the Bird & Beckett audience. This is one tight trio, jamming hard through standards and original material, and joined for this date by the very wonderful trumpet player Al Molina, also a B&B stalwart... it'll be top flight bop & its post-bop legacy...
and following the jazz session, still on Friday, join us for a book release party with free champagne for all! Gerald Rosen will be on hand throughout the evening, reading a snippet at the break between sets around 7:15 pm, and then starting in earnest at 8:30, celebrating his new book, a memoir/intellectual history called Cold Eye, Warm Heart: A Novelist's Search for Meaning. Jerry is a regular at Bird & Beckett, and a novelist since the 1970s. His books The Carmen Miranda Memorial Flagpole, Blues for a Dying Nation and Dr. Ebenezer's Book & Liquor Store are all lauded, critically acclaimed classics of the American scene. The wine & champagne, and the cheese & crackers all evening are on Jerry, a long-time supporter of Bird & Beckett.

Sunday, May 31st, a terrific double bill: First, at 2:30 pm, Walker Brents spins tall tales out of his self-penned west Texas mythos, centering on the ways of a sly and curious feline, to the strolling & loping bass improvisations of Don Prell. They call it "The Flintlock Sessions." If you find a recording of this in ten years, you'll marvel at the culture that flowed through Bird & Beckett back in the fabled days of '09... Walker & Don are disparate parts of the Bird & Beckett whole...
And you'll truly marvel at the store as a pipeline for the culture if you chance upon the second half of the bill... at 4:30 pm, Riffat Sultana & Party take the stage. This is Riffat's second appearance as part of the bookshop's "Which Way West?" Sunday afternoon weekly concert series -- again, as before, accompanied by Shiraz Ali Khan, aka Richard Michos, her husband and a phenomenal world music guitarist, along with the young and skilled tabla player, Samir Habibi. Riffat is a world-renowned vocalist hailing from Lahore, Pakistan, a skilled interpreter of classical, devotional, folk and popular styles, which she learned first from her father, the preeminent Pakistani classical singer of his generation, Ustad Salamat Ali Khan. She comes from eleven generations of prestigious musicians, and is the first woman in the family to be allowed to perform this music publicly, for which we are hugely grateful.

And then, on Monday, June 1st, at 7:00 pm: Our twice-a-month poetry series features Geri Digiorno, Nancy Keene and Michelle Baynes. One family, two generations; poetry royalty and a worthy heir(ess)... Nancy is very well known locally as the owner of the 3300 Club, a great Mission District bar with a long and storied history, where she has run a frequent poetry series for years attracting many of the regions most important poets, reading elbow to elbow with some of the cities staunchest barflies. Nancy grew up with a passel of sisters over in Noe Valley, lives a stone's throw from Bird & Beckett, and is a great poet herself. One of those sisters is Geri, now a Petaluma resident and in fact a lynchpin of the poetry world up in the North Bay... For years, she has been the impressario(ess) of the Petaluma Poetry Walk, which each September, in one huge day, brings in legions of poets to read and many hundreds of fans to listen at a succession of venues across that little country town, starting early over coffee and ending late over drinks, with much excitement all day long... Geri, too, is a fine and accomplished poet. And then there's Michelle, Geri's daughter, who recently published her own volume of poetry, Homeless in Petaluma, which directly engages that condition in that locale, through skilled poetry the like of which you'd rightfully expect of a woman in that very distinguished (and charming and talented) family. All this, and an open mic to follow.

Oh yeah, there's also the before and after: tonight (5/28) at 7:00 pm, we're convening a hardy crew of bookshop regulars for the monthly EABOR (i.e., the "Eminent Authors' Birthdays Open Reading"). If you don't know what it is, you might want to find out! It's one of the things we're proudest of here at B&B, humble as it is. And after the weekend, on Wednesday (6/3), the Bird & Beckett Book Club (which has been around longer than Bird & Beckett itself) meets at 7:00 to consider Jhumpa Lahiri's The Inheritance of Loss. Looking for a book club to participate in? Look no further. Come on in...

That's enough for this post! Don't forget, on Saturday, no event! Come buy a book. (You can buy books during the events too, by the way-- it helps us keep the lights on for the events!)