It’s Beatnik Night at Plan:b on Saturday, an event by that name cooked up for area musicians and poets to revive the look, feel, sounds and vibes of a half-century ago or so.
The 7:30 p.m. evening of jazz and readings in the night spot adjacent to Sassafras, 318 N. Carson St., will feature The Cellar Quintet and vocalists June Joplin, Tim Goldsmith and Bobby McGee. The latter is the stage name of musician and author Bob Reid. The Cellar Quintet includes McGee on piano, Goldsmith on bass, Wayne Theriault on trumpet, Sascha Feinstein playing tenor and Mark Ashworth on drums.
Readings will be handled by Feinstein, Shaun Griffin and Ismael Garcia Santillanes.
The cover charge is $5, and organizers urged folks in attendance to find their inner beatnik by digging up an old beret, turtleneck and shades to get with the program. The idea is to recreate the type of jazz and poetry night in the late 1950s at The Cellar in San Francisco.
The first and final set will feature “straight-ahead jazz and standards,” with most of the vocal chores handled by Joplin. The middle set will feature poetry and “totally cool jazz improv.”
Reid said the three poets “are first-class.” Feinstein won the Pennsylvania Governor’s Arts of the Year Award a few years ago; Griffin in 1998 received a similar honor in Nevada, and Santillanes’ first collection will be out from Black Rock Press at the University of Nevada, Reno, in a few months, Reid said.