Bookstores can say a lot about an area.
Nearly every district of San Francisco has its own unique bookstore. Haight Street has Bound Together, North Beach has City Lights, Valencia is home to Modern Times, and I am only naming a few.
The Fillmore has Marcus Books.
Let me just say, I love independent bookstores. I love the crammed shelves and slight disorder. Nothing is formulaic in independent bookstores. Most of the time the staff is knowledgeable, engaging, interesting and enthusiastic about their job and Marcus Books is no exception.
Marcus books is a store devoted to black history, culture and learning. The bookstore not only acts as a place of learning, but of understanding. It’s the oldest independent black bookstore in the country, according to Marcus Books.
Bells jingle when I push open the door, and a cute, dark brown wiener dog greets me. Conversations between two clerks behind the counter are lively, the whole atmosphere is inviting.
Marcus Books is a mix of radical and practical. Pamphlets about black movements and power are next to maps of Fillmore jazz clubs. The bookstore also showcases art by local black talent.
I walked through the store, past rows of black history, children’s books, politics, art and fiction. I walked towards the back of the store to my favorite section of any bookstore, the music section.
I browsed through the section until I found Blues People by LeRoni James. I flipped through it and decided it was worth my money and time (I was on a delta blues kick, you can’t listen to punk all the time).
I took the book to the counter and asked the tall, lanky yet elegant woman behind the counter about the history of the store.
She looked at the book and looked at me.
“It used to be a jazz club,” she said.
Back in San Francisco’s jazz renaissance musicians would play the big clubs downtown, then come back to what is now Marcus Books to play a late set and unwind.
Standards at the club that was once was were so high that bouncers were physically remove musicians who were deemed not good enough, according to the woman behind the counter.
She looked at Blue People again, then back at me.
“Do you play anything,” she asked.
I told her I play ukulele and bass, she went around the counter and came back with a large, soft-cover book.
“If you play bass, you must know James Jamerson,” she said. “He changed music.”
I told her I did not and she gave me a history lesson.
Jamerson was the unaccredited driving force behind Motown’s greatest hits and musicians. He was a bass master who lived and breathed music.
She then turned to the computer, put on Marvin Gaye and swayed with the music.
By the time she took my money and gave me a receipt, I had no idea how much time had passed. The minutes melted into music and history.
