The New Fillmore

Photograph of the Piano Care Co. at 2011 Divisadero by Daniel Bahmani

By Marjorie Leet Ford

THE SHOP’S carved wooden front door — both rough-hewn and fancy — quietly announces a portal to another time, when the ancient art of piano building was still going strong, and the world was as full of pianos as it now is of cars. The piano was the heart of the family; there were so many that some cities passed laws against playing a piano near an open window. Then came the radio and the gramophone, providing instant music.

But the romance lingers. Having the word “piano” in a title still wins hearts. Witness Thad Carhart’s high-selling novel The Piano Shop on the Left Bank; Jane Campion’s popular film The Piano and The Pianist, which became an Oscar winner for its director, Roman Polanski.

Romance may be part of the pleasure in opening the front door and stepping into the Piano Care Co. at 2011 Divisadero Street, just a few steps north of California.
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Photograph of Kim Nalley and her new daughter Lydia by Kathi O’Leary

By Pamela Feinsilber

IF THE FILLMORE were a university, rather than a school of hard knocks, jazz singer Kim Nalley would long ago have been awarded an honorary doctorate. Though she lives with husband Mike Lewis and their new baby girl Lydia in the saddle between Nob Hill and Russian Hill, looking out on the Golden Gate Bridge, the Fillmore considers her one of its own.

And the feeling is mutual.

“The Fillmore is my home away from home,” Nalley says. “I cut my eye teeth in the Fillmore.”

She got her start on Fillmore Street in the early ’90s singing at Harry’s Bar, the Fillmore Grill and the Alta Plaza Bar & Grill. It was during those gigs that she started claiming an ever-widening circle of fans. Since then, she’s performed around the world as a solo artist, with her band — even, for a few years, as the performer-owner of the Jazz at Pearl’s club in North Beach.

Nalley has been appearing regularly at the Fillmore Jazz Festival for a decade. This year she’s the jazz artist in residence, closing both days of the festival on the California Street stage.
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Photograph of Etta James by Anthony Montes de Oca

EXCERPT | By Etta James

Uncle Frank showed up in his car and whisked us up to San Francisco when I was 12. We dropped [my mother] Dorothy off in the Fillmore District, which looked like a hell-hole to me. L.A. was a vine-covered cottage compared to these slums. After the sunny skies of southern California, the Bay Area looked seedy and sad — the fog-covered sky, the bums on the street. Maybe it was my mood or just the neighborhood where Dorothy lived, but my first impression was grime and crime.

I wound up in a couple of gangs — one in the Fillmore, where my mother lived, and one in the projects by Uncle Frank. We wore baggy jeans, just like today, with the legs dragging on the ground. A white shirt was also part of our uniform — an oversize man’s shirt worn tails-out to cover your ass. Then you had your white socks rolled all the way down below your ankles and beat-up tennis shoes. I let my hair grow long and put it in a ponytail. I thought I was bad. I guess I was the classic case of a kid who, lacking a real family, was looking for a family feeling in gangs.

I started bouncing from school to school. I’d been going to Girls High School in the Fillmore, but they threw me out of there. I was a wiseguy and a clown, always cutting up, never minding no one. So they put me in Continuation School, which is your last stop before they kick your ass out of the system altogether.
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Mike Pitrie made the Fillmore his home base.

JAZZ | Anthony Torres

Mike “Coffee Picasso” Pitre, a true original local jazz talent and music scene treasure, died of a heart attack on December 18, leaving friends and admirers stunned at the sudden departure of the Bohemian Knuckleboogie lead man. He was 44.

I can still vividly remember that first sighting of Coffee and Bohemian Knuckleboogie a couple of years ago at Sheba Piano Lounge on Fillmore — the sound offering a unique blend of New Orleans jazz, soul and blues. It was difficult not to notice Mike Pitre, a larger than life black man, blowing a tiny pocket trumpet with an electric guitar draped over his torso. He sang with a style and voice that was incredibly hip and uniquely his own.

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NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT Michael Tilson Thomas is one of the best things to happen to the San Francisco Symphony in its first 100 years. Join in this sing-along for the symphony’s centennial — today, December 8.

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Photograph of Jason Olaine by Kathi O'Leary

JAZZ | Jason Olaine

It seems like only yesterday that I came back home to the Bay Area after 10 years in New York to become artistic director of Yoshi’s new jazz club on Fillmore. That was May 2009, and here it is soon to be 2012. Now I find myself about to leave Yoshi’s to return to New York to program Jazz at Lincoln Center.
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Photograph of Alden Gilchrist and the Calvary Chancel Choir by Alvin Johnson

LOCALS | FRAN MORELAND JOHNS

Alden Gilchrist has been making music at at the corner of Fillmore and Jackson for the past 60 years — and on October 28 he will be honored with a special concert as the longtime music director of Calvary Presbyterian Church.

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