Francis Wong, saxophones William Roper, tuba Scott Oshiro, flute & electronics Jordan Glenn, drums with poet Lynn Huang Francis Wong and William Roper go way back, and take it forward with two young lions. $20 cover charge (cash please) reservations, call 415-586-3733  

In Narrow Escapes, memoirist Louise Nayer takes the reader on a journey filled with danger and romance. Haunted by a terrible accident and adrift in love, the writer travels through Morocco, to New York City and finally, on a solo journey, to California, thousands of miles from her home. Set in the early 70s at a time of cataclysmic change in America, Narrow Escapes resonates with those who find themselves needing to release themselves from a difficult past in search for joy and home. https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/narrow-escapes.html Author Louise Nayer is a long-time educator and author of six books.  Burned: A Memoir was an Oprah Great Read and won the Wisconsin Library Association Award. She received six California Arts Council grants as a poet and has taught for years in community colleges, senior centers and nursing homes. She now teaches at OLLI UC Berkeley and at the Writer’s Grotto where she is…

Alchemy! Not as it seems, this ancient art. Neither is it otherwise. Is it what science was before science became what it is? Yes and no. Were the ancient alchemists really believing they could turn lead into gold? If so, what were their actual raw materials? Regardless of the answers to such questions, Walker Brents III will be offering a way to imagine the wealth of concepts contained in the various symbols of its theory and practice. For two decades, Walker has delved into diverse subjects in his monthly live streamed talks from Bird & Beckett, which you can find at the appointed time on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to support Walker and this project are always welcome and appreciated.

On the second and fourth Monday of each month, San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita Kim Shuck hosts an online poetry series, with featured poets and an open mic on the 2nd Monday and an all-open mic format on the 4th Monday. Information on how to participate follows at the bottom of this post. This evening’s featured poets are Lourdes Figueroa and Yeva Johnson. Lourdes Figueroa is an oral poet. Her poems are a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón in Yolo County. The words el azadón are used by the ones who work in the fields — the work of tilling the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl and Ruidos = To Learn Speak, completed during her Alley Cat Books Residency. Her chapbook Vuelta was recently published by Nomadic Press. She works and lives in Oakland with…

America’s favorite honky tonk band, The Seducers, resident at Bird & Beckett since the Great Riptide Fire of 2015, returns for its regular odd-months second Sundays booking — a Bakersfield to Nashville rave-up that never fails to please. Joe Goldmark, pedal steel master, is captain of the ship, though his charismatic second lieutenants Mitch Polzac on lead guitar and vocals and Hank Maninger on bass guitar and vocals vie for power and influence on the quarterdeck,\ while Chief Poetry Officer Kenny Owen keeps the fire burning and the turbines spinning from the drumkit. Sail on to Seduction!

Two musicians who have long inhabited the liminal spaces of the San Francisco bohemia perform from the Bird & Beckett stage this afternoon. Poet and troubadour, guitarist and painter Jerry Ferraz, born in San Franciscan in 1950, grew up in Eureka Valley, the watershed from Twin Peaks that feeds the Castro District. He wandered the City from a young age, first just taking in the evolution of the culture and soon offering his own poetry and song to whoever he encountered in the cafes, bars, galleries and streets, channeling ancient traditions of France’s Languedoc region, the rural blues of the American South and the dust bowl folk music of the Southwest. He was on the first bill of poets to perform in the bookshop the year we opened, 1999, and has grounded our poetry series ever since. For a few years now, on many a Sunday he’s been found playing…

SF Lives Live Talks–Journalist Denise Sullivan + guest live streamed every 2nd Sunday at 10 a.m. San Francisco journalist Denise Sullivan conducts a monthly series of conversations (the second Sunday of each month from 10-11 a.m.) with The City’s activists, educators, arts and cultural leaders and workers, the everyday people who help make this place we call home, live streamed from Bird & Beckett Books and viewable on the Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. This month Denise is in conversation with Mike Shriver. Shriver has been involved in HIV/AIDS advocacy, activism, program development, organizational development and public policy efforts for over 30 years. He served on the Board of the National AIDS Memorial Grove and was honored with its Lifetime Achievement Award, is an honorary trustee of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), and is one of the organizers of Burrito Project SF. He was a…

Dewayne Oakley, bass violin Raja, vocals Ralph Nelson, guitar Rob Rhodes, drums BYOB and a twenty for the band! Reservations, call 415-586-3733 The blues speak to all of us, and we’ll let the Dewayne Oakley Blues Ensemble speak for itself. Enjoy these videos, and then come to the show. There’s nothing like being in the room with the musicians and their music. And having Raja along for the ride on this date makes us more than  happy. Video  

    Reed and flute player Masaru Koga, who left the Bay Area for New York a few years ago, returns to Bird & Beckett joined by pianist Frank Martin, bassist Essiet Okon Essiet and drummer Sylvia Cuenca for an intimate and open conversation in jazz. $20 cover charge, byob. Reservations – (415) 586-3733

2nd Fridays jazz happy hours are the province of Eric Shifrin and a deep pool of talent he’s cultivated over decades on the San Francisco scene. Tonight, his “Peninsula Project!” from the gutters of North Beach to the gilded shelves of the bookstore. BYOB and some dough for the musicians. A twenty fits the bill very well, but pitch in what fits your economics. Stay for a tune or a set or the whole 2-1/2 hour happy hour! Whatever takes the workweek stress away. Eric & the In Crowd will make it easy and oh, so pleasurable. Eric Shifrin, piano & vocals Rick Brown, trombone Carl Herder, bass Garry Williams, drums

Farhad Bahrami, electric ûd and compositions Hafez Modirzadeh, saxophones John-Carlos Perea, electric bass Amir Abbas Etemadzadeh, tombak and daf Keshav Batish, drums $25 cover charge at the door (cash, please) BYOB.  Reservations, call 415-586-3733.           Born to Iranian teachers on Fullbright scholarships to the U.S., Farhad Bahrami’s childhood was spent in Texas, Tehran, and Oxford. In 1979, he came to San Diego to study engineering at San Diego State University, graduating in 1984 with a bachelor’s in music (composition) and computer science, receiving a master’s in music (ethnomusicology) from SDSU in 2007, having pursued his interests in music in parallel to his career in software. In San Diego, he brought Persian music to the experimental Trummerflora Collective and was co-founder and musical director of Jazmahalis, an ensemble that mixed elements of Persian folk music (mahali) with jazz, recording two albums: one of original pop and dance…

Drummer Myron Cohen carries the spirit of the late Billy Higgins into the present day, with joy and a propulsive, irresistible beat.  In the countless iterations of his Billy Higgins Legacy Project, he honors the mentoring he received by the late great drummer Higgins with his own mentoring of many, many brilliant emerging players, taken under his wing in a burning desire to be true to Higgins’ spirit. Today, he performs with the young saxophonist Peyton Pleninger in an hour-long duo interplay. Peyton Pleninger, a tenor saxophonist, improviser, bandleader and conceptualist still in his twenties, has forged a personal path that challenges the boundaries of what it means to be a musician. His experience involves a variety of disciplines centered around music, which also includes astrology, painting and sculpture, botany, construction, massage and medical inquiry. Pleninger worked as a mentee of Milford Graves, from spring 2019 until Graves’ passing in…

Ocean-inspired originals from three jazaquanuts! Daniel Heffez, tenor sax Adam Shulman, organ Omar Aran, drums $20 cover charge (cash, please) byob          

    Bluesy Jazz for International Women’s Day. Here is a story of a blues woman who meets with other musicians… and then, we have Jazz through her journey. Pat Wilder, guitar and vocals Nzinga Smith, saxophone Mike Rogers, bass Mike R, drums $20 cover charge (cash, please); sliding scale available. byob

Betty Wong presents a number of ensembles and soloists, all closely associated with San Francisco’s century old Community Music Center, reflecting the breadth of the world’s music, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit. The Randy Craig Trio always plays a sweet set of jazz to finish out the program. Come and be in the presence of some San Francisco jewels. No charge, but your donations are welcome and appreciated.

Greg Abate, saxophone Ben Stolorow, piano Matt Montgomery, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums Welcoming the return of the road warrior, a year since his last visit to the Bird & Beckett stage! Greg Abate tours relentlessly and tears it up every time, and this trio is fully up to the challenge. Are you? (We’re quite sure you are; it’s nothing but fun, great bebop, originals and a gorgeous horn player!) $20 cash cover charge. Byob. Reserve: 415-586-3733. www.gregabate.com

$20 cash  cover charge -  byob Reservations, call 415-586-3733 John-Carlos Perea: Native American cedar flutes, drum, voice Masaru Koga: saxophones, flute, shakuhachi   Karl Evangelista: guitar  The John-Carlos Perea trio improvises with and through the shared musical experiences of its members. Featuring guitarist Karl Evangelista and saxophonist/flutist Masaru Koga, the trio will perform music from Cedar Flute Songs, Perea’s upcoming cedar flute album available Spring 2023. This reunion marks the trio’s first performance since Koga’s departure for New York in 2019.  

Luke Schwartz, guitar Curtis Aikens, bass Jeff Pera, drums Keeping the jazz happy hour happy for an hour. byob and a twenty for the trio!

Rachelle Escamilla is a Chicana poet from the Central Coast of California. She has three collections of poetry, Imaginary Animal (Willow Books, 2015, 2nd Edition, 2021), Me Drawing a Picture of Me[n] (Willow Books, 2019), and Space Junk from the Heavenly Palace (Nomadic Press 2023).   Janice Lobo Sapigao is a Filipina American author from the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets. She is an Associate Professor of English at Skyline College. She founded the Santa Clara County Youth Poet Laureate Program when she was the county Poet Laureate from 2020-2021.

The last Sunday of each month, veteran drummer Vince Lateano is at the center of a dynamic and easy going session at Bird & Beckett that attracts old hands and young pups alike, aided by bassist Peter Barshay and pianist Ben Stolorow. Bird & Beckett’s Doggone Session is just the most recent iteration of sessions Vince has been renowned for over the decades at venues including Pier 23, the Dogpatch Saloon, the Seven Mile House (which Vince dubbed the Doghouse Jam) and Sweeties. And while some talents, characters and devotees show up pret’ near every time at these Bird & Beckett sessions, the churn and evolution is constant, and legendary players you’ve never heard of turn up with regularity, drawn by their history and friendship with Vince, a swinging force on the San Francisco jazz scene since he hit North Beach in the mid-1960s. Born and raised in Sacramento, Vince…

Bird & Beckett is excited and pleased to host a free listening party with musician and bandleader Idris Ackamoor in anticipation of the upcoming concerts with his full seven-piece band, The Pyramids, augmented by a string quartet and an additional horn section at the Presidio Theater in mid-March, as well as the impending release of their new album, “Afro Futuristic Dreams.” Score your free tickets to the March concerts at the free listening party tonight!! At Bird & Beckett on Saturday, February 25th, from 7:30 to 9:30pm, Idris will be joined by band members Sandra Poindexter (violin) and Bobby Cobb (guitar) as he narrates the band’s arc and its futuristic destiny, demonstrating key concepts with his saxophone and composition fragments. The event is free, but reservations are strongly suggested; please call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 during business hours, noon to six, Tuesday to Sunday to reserve for this momentous free…

Come out for an hour’s duo set by two musicians with a long history of collaboration. Guitarist John Stowell is in town for a few days and joins his friend and colleague, the saxophonist Michael Zilber to continue a conversation in jazz which we last encountered at Bird & Beckett in August 2022. $15 cover charge. byob.  

Charlie McCarthy, saxophones and flute Si Perkoff, piano Glen Deardorff, guitar Chuck Bennett, bass Tony Johnson, drums with guest vocalist Darlene Langston Bassist Al Obidinski, a wonderfully funny, droll, down to earth & supremely hip bass player, one of the great human beings, passed away last month. We’re more than sad that he’s gone. This evening, his bandstand colleagues in the long-running residence of the 230 Jones Street band created and nurtured by the late tenor player Chuck Peterson and now led by drummer Tony Johnson will pay tribute with special attention to some tunes Al played during his time with Benny Goodman and stories from many decades of friendship. Bring your own beverage and some dough to help us pay these six musicians! $20-30 donation requested, though you needn’t let lack of funds keep you home. Come help us celebrate a fine jazz musician, and donate what you can.…

The tradition resumes! The Ethnic Heritage Ensemble travels out of Chicago each February for a tour with stops all around the country. Percussionist Kahil El’Zabar leads the trio, featuring Corey Wilkes on trumpet and Alex Harding on baritone sax. The EHE first visited Bird & Beckett in February 2017 and made stops here in February 2018 and 2019, and on January 31, 2020, before the pandemic put a stop to their travels for two years. We’re delighted to have them return! $30 cover charge. Cash please, at the door. Reservations highly suggested. Call 415-586-3733. Doors open 15 minutes before the show. BYOB. Sir Kahil El’Zabar was born in 1953 in Chicago, attended Kennedy-King and Malcolm X City Colleges of Chicago before enrolling at Lake Forest College, in Lake Forest, Illinois, and also studied at the University of Ghana. In 1969, El’Zabar performed with Eugene Ammons in St. Louis and Cincinnati.…

Black Fire This Time An Ensemble of Jazz & Poetry Poets Avotcja Venus Jones Shizue Seigel Christl Rikka Perkins Zakiyyah G.E. Capehart Nazela Jamison Bryant Bolling Dondi Dancy Music Avotcja, small percussion Heshima Mark Williams, bass Heather Buchanan, piano Readings with jazz, from contributors to the new and acclaimed anthology from Willow Press — Black Fire This Time — a collection of over 100 poets and writers on the history and legacy of the Black Arts Movement, edited by Dr. Kim McMillon and assistant editor Kofi Antwi. With special guests from Write Now! SF Bay. This event at Bird & Beckett occurs on the eve of The National Black American Read-In (NBARI), a celebration of excellence by Black poets, writers and playwrights, kicking off officially with an event at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) on February 23, 2023 and running throughout the year. No cover charge, but your…

The mind of Ibn Arabi, says Walker, is like a mountain range, from which vast ecosystems of thought are continuously created.  He’ll assay to take you there to have a look at the nearness of this mind to us, in time-and-space terms, as well as take in a bit of the distance involved, as it relates to our on-going human journey. Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) was a key mystic, philosopher and poet of the 500-year Islamic “Golden Era” that dates from the 8th century. Look for Bird & Beckett’s live streams on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. ____________________________ Walker Talks is a monthly talk (save the summer months) that Walker Brents III has been offering the Bird & Beckett community on diverse topics since the early days of the bookshop, beginning shortly after the turn of the century. During the summers, with his wife Joyce, he travels up the coast…

Wayne de Silva, saxophone Brad Buethe, guitar Peter Barshay, bass Brian Melvin, drums $20 cash cover charge at the door. BYOB. Reservations, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Brian Melvin remembers when he was 5 years old in San Francisco fascinated by Ringo Starr’s swing on the drum kit with the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, getting a drum with a cymbal attached that Christmas shortly after he turned 6,  and at age 7 meeting Buddy Rich at Bimbo’s 365 Club. Buddy genially gave Brian a pair of sticks, his album “Big Swing Face,” a picture and a friendship that lasted up until Buddy’s departure five years ago. Not long after, he was grooving on the music exploding in the Haight Ashbury, especially the Grateful Dead and its drummers. Soon, the drumming of Jerry Granelli profoundly influenced him. “Jerry was just so different,” writes Brian, “and brought the mystical into…

On the third Sunday of each month, we’re delighted to present the Vince Lateano Trio playing two sets, for the pure pleasure of it. Vince Lateano, drums Peter Barshay, bass Ben Stolorow, piano byob and a twenty for the trio! Vince Lateano has been a marvelous presence on the San Francisco scene since he came to the City in the mid-1960s. He quickly worked his way into the local jazz scene, playing, recording and touring with Vince Guaraldi, subbing around town for Johnny Markham when Markham went on the road with Sinatra and other major acts, and working extensively with Cal Tjader, Eddie Duran, Chet Baker, Clare Fisher and a host of others through the years… Later, all through the 1990s ’til it closed as such in 2003, he was the house drummer at Jazz at Pearl’s in North Beach, playing with his own trio several nights a week and…

Jane Lenoir, flute Ricardo Peixoto, 7-string guitar Brian Rice, pandeiro with special guest Paul Hanson, bassoon $20 cash cover charge at the door, byob Reservations, call (415) 586-3733 The Berkeley Choro Ensemble (pronounced “shoro”) is a group of world-class musicians from the SF Bay Area that made its debut in January, 2010 at the Berkeley Public Library with founding member Harvey Wainapel, presently on hiatus. The group celebrates the music, culture and history of Brazil, with a special emphasis on choro, a genre and style of music which emerged in the 1800s in Brazil, fusing the music of Brazil’s European immigrants and the native music of Brazil’s indigenous and African-Brazilian population. In particular, the choro sound is somewhat akin to a combination of European classical music, ragtime and blues. Historically, the choro style influenced Brazil’s most famous classical composer, Heitor Villa Lobos, to compose some of the world’s most hauntingly…

Filling in for Scott Foster on his traditional third Friday booking at Bird & Beckett, we offer a stellar trio of drummer Sylvia Cuenca, bassist Peter Barshay and pianist Ben Stolorow, performing for you from 5:30 to 8:00pm.    Peter and Ben are stalwart members of Vince Lateano’s trio, which has a third-Sundays residency at Bird & Beckett throughout 2023. And this coming third Sunday (2/19), Peter will pull a double, playing with the Lateano trio at from 5 to 7pm, then anchoring a quartet date at 9pm with traveling (from Estonia) drummer Brian Melvin in the company of guitarist Brad Buethe and saxophonist Wayne De Silva. The Lateano trio, Vince, Peter & Ben, also hosts a jam session at Bird & Beckett on the last Sunday of each month from 5 to 7pm! That’s a scene to be at. Be sure to make it on 2/26! But returning to…