Noel Jewkes and Jazz...in Sausalito?

People tend to see Marin as a rock’n’roll county, thinking we’re more into rock here than, say, jazz or classical music. And that may be true, but tell it to the folks at Marin Symphony, or to those who book the entertainment at places like Horizons and the Sausalito Seahorse restaurant. The Seahorse has regular Tuesday night jazz (free) with the Seahorse Quartet. And Horizons, at the other end of Sausalito, has a kind of jazz summit this coming Wednesday night “with Scott Hamilton and Friends,” upstairs in its event space, Ondine. That show sold out so quickly, Hamilton and friends will also play for two dinner shows, downstairs in Horizons, on Saturday, Sept. 3.

At all these gigs, you’ll find local jazzman Noel Jewkes, most likely on tenor sax. Jewkes, who lives in Larkspur, is considered one of the preeminent sax players in Northern California. In fact, the Seahorse Quartet becomes the Noel Jewkes Quartet when it performs elsewhere. Phil Elwood, the esteemed late jazz critic for the San Francisco Examiner, once called Jewkes—who also plays soprano sax, clarinet, and sometimes bass—“the best mainstream reedman in the Bay Area…. I don’t know of a better contemporary modern saxman anywhere.”

So we’re lucky to be able to hear him play—for free and nearby yet—each week at the Sausalito Seahorse, with Grant Levin on piano, Dean Reilly and others on bass, and Bryan Bowman on drums. And then there are the shows with Scott Hamilton, who lives in Italy. He doesn’t come to the States, not to mention Sausalito, all that often, so the sold-out show isn’t surprising, even in a rock county.

Dan Smith, the man behind the jazz shows at Horizons, is a Bay Area sax player and appellate lawyer — I know, you don’t often see those two phrases in the same sentence. A major Hamilton fan, he  persuaded Hamilton to come perform with San Francisco jazz pianist Larry Vuckovich last year.

”They wanted to add a sax player,” explains Jewkes, “and we played a handful of concerts. Larry wanted to make a CD, and this performance is a kind of celebration. It’s a good, swingin’ album.” Called Somethin’ Special, the CD — something like Vuckovich's 40th — was only recently released.

In addition to Hamilton and Jewkes, both on tenor sax, and Vuckovich on piano, the lineup for the dinner shows at Horizons features Paul Keller on bass, Chuck McPherson on drums, and singer Jamie Davis. Keller has recorded with Diana Krall; McPherson has toured with Freddie Hubbard; Davis’s deep baritone drew comparisons from Jazz Times to Billie Eckstein’s “silken splendor.” (Jackie Ryan sings with the band at Ondine, and drummer Harold Jones is also in the lineup there.)

So Jewkes, needless to say, is in good company.

You wouldn’t know it, but “I’m basically a country boy,” says Jewkes, who moved to the Bay Area in 1963. He’s from Orem, Utah, and even went to BYU. But his musical ways began in what he calls a “strange little swing band” called the Jewkes Orchestra: his mother on piano; father on trumpet, valve trombone, guitar, and bass; an uncle on sax; another on violin; family friends on trumpet and drums. Jewkes began performing at 12, on clarinet and sax. One day, he says, he got a call from a relative who was on vacation in Fresno (yes), staying with someone who owned a motel with a lounge band that played six nights a week.

That’s how Jewkes ended up in California. “I came for the adventure, and I’m still having it.”

Aug 31: “with Scott Hamilton and Friends," 8 pm, Ondine (above Horizons), 558 Bridgeway, Sausalito, SOLD OUT.

Sept. 3: Scott Hamilton and Friends, 7 and 8:30 pm, dinner reservations required, Horizons, 558 Bridgeway, Sausalito, 415.331.3232.

Tuesday nights: jazz sessions with the Seahorse Quartet, 7 to 10 pm, Sausalito Seahorse, 305 Harbor Dr. (Gate 5 Road), Sausalito, 415.331.2899.