On December 4, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Roots, Jazz & American Music B.Mus. degree program fields the B105 Seminar Jazz Ensemble coached by drummer Akira Tana. Remarkable talent on display! Come down to the shop, or tune in to the live stream on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. Your donations support the musicians and the stream. Thanks for that! The first Sunday of each month, Bird & Beckett proudly presents a jazz combo comprising students from a local college or high school opening the program, followed by a student jam session led by a professional trio. Co-produced and underwritten by Jazz in the Neighborhood and Bird & Beckett, the students in the combos receive a small stipend and the professional musicians receive a guaranteed fair wage. Your contributions are much appreciated. Your ears as well! All young and youngish students aspiring to a career in jazz —…

Oakland-based ensemble The TOaG Quartet brings a dazzling breadth of improvisational music, all composed in response to and reflecting on the tumultuous last several years – which hit professional creatives especially hard. Described as “Swinging and Funky,” “Beautiful and Groovin,” “Dark and Spacey,” and “Raw but Refined,” The TOaG Quartet, under the direction of bassist Benjamin Lee, is fronted by saxophone phenom Eli Maliwan, whose technical and creative prowess is unmatched. Powerhouse drummer Ricky Carter commands the rhythm section with a seamless blend of fury and subtlety, alongside veteran guitarist DV Wright – whose soundscapes are as stunning as his screaming solos. $20 cover charge; BYOB. Call the store at 415-586-3733 for a reservation. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30pm show. Our events are live streamed on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations while watching online help us pay the musicians and support the stream. $10…

Ed Cherry is one of the greats of jazz. He’s been on that course since the late 1970s, and is solidly in his prime. Tonight, he leads a trio in the intimate space that is Bird & Beckett. $20 cash cover charge. BYOB. Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30pm show. Call for reservations – 415-586-3733 Nothing beats being in the room, but the date will also be live streamed on the Bird & Beckett YouTube channel and Facebook page; and if you partake substantially of it, we hope you’ll support the stream by donating per the information on the screen. $10 is nice. Ed Cherry moved to New York from New Haven, Connecticut in 1978 to play guitar with Dizzy Gillespie for the better part of a decade and a half, from 1978 to 1992, performing in Gillespie’s quartet and big band, and with Diz’s United Nation Orchestra, which…

Regarding Daniel Wolff”s new book from Four Way Books, More Poems About Money: Poet Rosanna Warren calls it “an angry and ingenious collection… [that] indicts global capitalism in a fury of word-play, rhymes, squint-eyed sonnets, and puns.” Author Jonathan Galassi describes the work as “razor-sharp, deeply witty, sardonic meditations.” This Wolff’s fourth collection; his poetry has appeared in many literary magazines including The Paris Review, the American Poetry Review, The Three Penny Review, and Raritan. From prologue: “What do global combat and property ownership have to do with sex and sea turtles? According to Daniel Wolff—as it turns out, everything. More Poems about Money looks at the economic times we live in, from boom to bust, from the suburbs to the warzone, in a voice that ranges from humorous to desperate. Grappling with monetary value and how it infringes on self worth, Wolff asks simultaneously timeless and timely questions—Who has…

The Potrero Hillbillies — Joshua Raoul Brody, Joe Cunningham and Christopher Gray — dig into the songbook of one of the key bands of old, weird America. $20 cash cover charge, byob Reservations, call 415-586-3733. Live streamed on the Bird & Beckett YouTube channel and Facebook page.$10 suggested donation per the directions on the screen (paypal, venmo, cash app) if you tuned in for a full set.

Jump rhythm & blues! Karina Denike, vocal Tom Griesser, sax Michael McIntosh, piano Joe Kyle, Jr., bass Randy Lee Odell, drums $25 cash cover charge ($20-25 sliding scale) BYOB Reservations, call 415-586-3733. Live streamed on the Bird & Beckett YouTube channel and Facebook page. $10 suggested donation per the directions on the screen (paypal, venmo, cash app) if you tuned in for a full set.

The New Squatoolas take you on a joyous romp in a New Orleans mode, playing the music of NOLA jazz, funk and soul pioneers – The Meters, Smokey Johnson, Fats Domino, The Nevilles, The Wild Tchoupitoulas, ‘Fess – as well as original compositions invoking the style and vibe of those and other greats of that bayou metropolis.     $20 cover charge; BYOB. Call the shop at 415-586-3733 for a reservation. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30pm show. Our events are live in the shop and also live streamed on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations while watching online help us pay the musicians and support the stream. $10 is nice if you’re online for a set or two. Every donation helps.

Drummer Tony Johnson leads a quartet on the 4th Friday of each month. And here it is the fourth Friday! But he’s out tonight; we’ll see him with the 230 Jones Street band at the end of December. His regular colleagues tenor player Bob Kenmotsu and pianist Keith Saunders have recruited Doug Miller to fill in for Eric Markowitz and Vince Lateano to fill in for Tony. Such is the wealth of talent available in the City of St. Francis in 2022. San Francisco’s a divine jazz town for sure. Tonight: Bob Kenmotsu, tenor sax Keith Saunders, piano Doug Miller, bass Vince Lateano, drums Join us! BYOB and a twenty for the band. Our events are live in the shop and also live streamed on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations while watching online help us pay the musicians and support the stream. $10 is nice if…

Drive down to Bird & Beckett on Friday, with Thanksgiving and all its trimmings in the rear view. San Francisco born & bred Annette A. Aguilar is out west and stops in for some coquito & conga action with family and you, her newfound old time friends. After her teen years all over the latin music scene of the Mission District, she finished her B.Mus. in classical percussion at SFSU in the 1980s and headed for NYC where she’s been a force for decades — with her long-time ensemble Stringbeans, annual productions of Women in Latin Jazz festival concerts, and most recently as a member of Arturo O’Farrill’s BronX BandA unit. In town to be with family and play a few gigs, Annette will roll in to Bird & Beckett the day after Thanksgiving for some happy hour rumba n samba with local hero John Calloway — a Latin Jazz…

Two shows on Friday: a happy hour rumba and an evening of jazz with the Bob Kenmotsu Quartet to follow! Saturday, it’s the New Squatoolas bringing the spirit of New Orleans, and Sunday, jump blues and R&B quintet, the Cottontails followed by the Potrero Hillbillies playing the music of The Band and a few other things. Five shows in three days! Friday 11/25 at 5pm, Annette A. Aguilar’s Beans on the Left offers rumba n samba, featuring John Calloway! Pay what you want for this one, byob, and chillax! San Francisco born & bred Annette A. Aguilar, after her teen years spent all over the latin music scene of the Mission District,  finished her B.Mus. in classical percussion at SFSU in the 1980s and headed for NYC where she’s been a force on the Latin Jazz scene for decades — with her long-time ensemble Stringbeans, annual productions of Women in…

Bassist Peter Barshay and pianist Ben Stolorow join drummer Vince Lateano for two sets of jazz for your pleasure, and ours. BYOB and a twenty for the band! Our events are live streamed on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations while watching online help us pay the musicians and support the stream. $10 is nice if you’re online for a set or two. Every donation helps.

A couple dozen “cranky” and concise essays by our esteemed San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita Kim Shuck were published just a month or two ago by our good friends at Andover Archives Press, just on the eve of a 9,000 ramble around the country. She’s back now & we’ll celebrate by joining Kim for a reading &  publication party, along with the folks who put out the book — Judy Bernhardt and Byron Spooner, and her driver, photographer, cook and soulmate, Doug Salin. And you. Of that ramble, says Kim, “It would have been bizarre if we’d seen nothing that enchanted us. The truth is that the land is still the place that has inspired writers, visual artists and sages of many generations. Face to face, in the diners and poetry venues, we still have more in common than we might like to believe. From Shreveport clawing together its aspirational…

    Sunday, November 20 – 4 pm – free – byob Kim Shuck hosts a reading to celebrate the new Beat Not Beat anthology Kim writes: Beat Not Beat is a collection of poems from poets Beat, Beat adjacent and parallel styles of writing. Many contemporary California writers benefit from literary stands taken by those writers who were designated Beat. This book features some of these. Kim and Beat Not Beat editor Rich Ferguson, up from L.A., will be joined by contributors Tongo Eisen-Martin, Marc Olmsted, Richard Modiano. V. Vale, Julie Rogers, Jessica Loos, Cassandra Dallett, Paul Corman-Roberts. Richard Loranger, Kitty Costello, Charlie Getter, Kelly Gray. K.R. Morrison. Wow. Sunday, November 20 – 7:30 pm – $20 – BYOB Rob Reich / Beth Goodfellow Trio with Ben Goldberg on clarinet and Dan Fabricant on bass Just days ahead of his appearance with the San Francisco Symphony supplying the accordion…

Daniel Fabricant on bass + Ben Goldberg on clarinet tonight! BYOB and a twenty for the band. Or donate & watch it in the stream on our facebook page or youtube channel! Rob Reich is quintessentially what makes the San Francisco music scene a vibrant and vital mecca for independent music; he’s become one of its stalwart underground artists. His music defies genre, combining strong melodic ideas, rhythmic drive, and a spirit of irreverence and experimentation. He is best known for his work with Tin Hat, Gaucho, and Circus Bella. Elizabeth Goodfellow, now based in Los Angeles, has been a long-time collaborator with Reich.  Beth grew up in Northern California’s San Joaquin Valley and started playing drums at age eleven at local harvest festivals. Her first professional drumming job was playing in the Air Force National Guard Band of the West Coast while studying classical percussion performance at San Jose…

Saturday, November 19 – 7:30pm – $25-30 sliding scale – BYOB The man, the legend, the rumor – Ben Goldberg Ben is here with Ben Goldberg’s Glamorous Escapades, an all-sex star-tet! Who’s in this band, you ask? How about Rob Sudduth, tenor saxophone; Danny Lubin-Laden, trombone; Will Bernard, electric guitar; Owen Clapp, electric bass; Jordan Glenn, drums; and himself, Ben Goldberg, clarinet and compositions? How about?

Friday, November 18 – 7:30pm – $20 – BYOB Scott Foster joins forces with the Vince Lateano Trio Scott Foster, guitar Ben Stolorow, piano Peter Barshay, bass Vince Lateano, drums

  Pedal steel master Joe Goldmark, who has more recordings to his credit than a catfish has whiskers, leads a crackerjack combo playing America’s other classical music, in cahoots with Mitch Polzak, Hank Maninger and Kenny Owen. And yes, you can view it in the stream, but it’s much more lively in person down here in Glen Park. BYOB and a twenty for the band! Seating at 4:45 for the 5pm show. BYOB and a twenty for the band! For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Also live streamed on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations while watching online help us pay the musicians and support the stream.

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 lesser-known workers, the everyday people who help make this place we call home, live streamed from Bird & Beckett Books. November 13, at 10 a.m., Denise and Josiah Luis Alderete will have a conversation from our stage in a live stream viewable on the Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. During the pandemic, poet Alderete, joined forces with a couple of friends and fulfilled a long held vision: To open a bookstore in the Mission District. Medicine for Nightmares is not only a bookstore; it’s a gallery and community space with a commitment to supporting the local literary and arts community and its historically Spanish-speaking neighborhood, 24th Street in San Francisco. Alderete’s recent poetry collection Baby Axolotls y…

Radical organizer and Chicago alderman Helen Shiller presents Daring to Stuggle, Daring to Win: Five Decades of Resistance in Chicago’s Uptown Community (Haymarket Books, 2022), her book about Chicago resistance politics. Helen Shiller went from radical anti-war activist in Wisconsin, to a member of a collective of white allies of the Black Panther Party in Chicago, to an elected city council person who helped break the back of the racialized opposition to Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor. Early on, Shiller was deeply engaged in the fight against the gentrification of a unique economically and racially mixed Chicago community on the Northside. With insight into historic community organizing and political battles in Chicago from the 1970s through 2010, her book details numerous policy fights and conflicts in Chicago during that time, illuminating recurrent political themes and battles that remain relevant to this day. Also live streamed on our YouTube channel…

The jaded hopes and wistful dreams of Rolf Wilkinson, vocals, guitar and compositions Safa Shokrai, bass Vamaken Bedrosian, trombone. Check the Tin Cup Serenade website for insight! Tonight, doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30pm show. BYOB and a twenty for the trio. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Also live streamed on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations while watching online help us pay the musicians and support the stream.

Domingo & Friends, harkening back to a golden era of R&B, blues and soul. When Domingo Balinton was a lad, the Fillmore District was in its full “Harlem of the West” mode, and he had the run of the neighborhood alongside his big sister, who we know as Sugar Pie DeSanto, and their cousin Jamesetta Hawkins, better known to posterity as Etta James! Domingo Balinton, bass Lorraine Balinton, vocals Richard Cruz, keys Tim Landis, guitar Will Young, drums Friday, November 11 – 7:30pm – $20 cover charge BYOB – reservations, call 415-586-3733 Live in the shop and live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations support the musicians and the stream.  

“A deeply nuanced world — Jonas crafts a richly expansive sound that stresses subtle timbral shadings and tersely composed phrases punctuated by sudden bursts of flavorful improvisation… Distinctive, accessible, simple and achingly beautiful.” – Michael Kremer, Jazziz The Chris Jonas Trio: Music from the Deserts explores the music Jonas wrote over two months of camping alone in January of 2021 and 2022 in very remote Sonora Desert places, including Arizona’s Barry Goldwater Missile Range. Music from Deserts will contain some elements of a traditional jazz trio, but will display colors and sounds outside the usual domains of jazz, mixing elements that are quirky, delicate, weirdly groovy, polyphonic, and a mixture of the disjointed and melodic. The trio this evening will comprise Chris Jonas, on soprano and tenor saxophone, joined by two deeply innovative musicians from the Bay Area, Lisa Mezzacappa on bass and Jordan Glenn on drums (n.b, Jason Levis,…

Friends and family gather to celebrate the life of Ellen Wall (October 23, 1939-March 11, 2022), an English professor at City College of San Francisco for 34 years who had a profound impact on a great number of San Franciscans across generations and cultures. At 3:30pm, you’re welcome to meet at Ellen’s house at 225 Edna Street, just a short block from the main campus of City College, for a walk to the CCSF campus library on Cloud Circle — a walk Ellen made thousands of time during her career. A toast to Ellen’s generous, creative spirit will ensue there at about 4pm. The gathering at the bookshop, in nearby Glen Park, will follow at 5pm. Bird & Beckett is a block and a half from the Glen Park BART station, on Chenery Street between Diamond and Castro. You are, of course, welcome to simply come to the bookshop at…

The first Sunday of each month, Bird & Beckett is proud and pleased to host a jazz combo comprising students from a local college or high school opening the program, followed by a student jam session led by a professional trio. Co-produced and underwritten by Jazz in the Neighborhood and Bird & Beckett, the students in the combos receive a small stipend and the professional musicians receive a guaranteed fair wage. This time out, it’s a jazz combo from Urban High, over in the Haight! Immensely talented kids, learning the ropes there under the direction of Bird & Beckett’s favorite guitar player, Scott Foster — Urban’s Performing Arts Department Chair! Stick around after the combo’s set for a jam session led by drummer Akira Tana, with Keith Saunders on piano and Peter Barshay on bass — top-rank professional players from three generations. If you can’t make it into the shop,…

Karl Evangelista-guitar Francis Wong-saxophone Lisa Mezzacappa-bass Donald Robinson-drums $20 cover charge. BYOB. Live in the shop and live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations support the musicians and the stream. Filipino-American guitarist/composer Karl Evangelista presents Apura (Tagalog for “Very Urgent”), a project that explores the relationship between jazz-based musical improvisation and social transformation in an era of worldwide political upheaval. Karl Evangelista’s Apura celebrates the power of creative music as a weapon of struggle. Apura uses original composition and daring improvised sounds to explore the passionate, embattled culture of the Philippines – Evangelista’s ancestral home. Along the way, Evangelista pays homage to the imposing legacies of American free jazz and South African improvised music. This occasion marks Apura’s only 2022 performance, featuring Asian Improv aRts cofounder Francis Wong (saxophone), enterprising bassist Lisa Mezzcappa (bass), and Bay Area great Donald Robinson (drums). The ensemble…

Eric Scheide, saxophone Tom Disher, piano Tom Donald, bass Ramon Cairo, drums Latin & funk-infused jazz, heavy on originals in the vein of Horace Silver, Bill Evans and a panoply of influences. Once known as the Jazz Beaus, it’s the same four fellas with a new name and new music — a little jazz, a little funk, a little Latin, all mixed together for a good time. $20 cover charge. BYOB. Live in the shop and live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch host featured poets (and in this case, prose fiction writers), on the first Thursday of each month, with an open mic following the featured readers. Live in the shop and live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. Tobey Hiller is the author of six books: a novel, four collections of poetry—the latest CROW MIND from Finishing Line Press—and, most recently, a book of short stories, FLIGHT ADVICE; A FABULARY, from Unlikely Books, which she’ll be reading from tonight.   Tobey was a finalist for Omnidawn’s 2019 Fantasy Contest. Her stories have won prizes as well as ending up (frustratingly) on short lists. Her poetry and flash can be found in a variety of magazines and anthologies, for instance Ambush Review, Askew, Spillway, Mediterranean Poetry, Shotglass Journal, The Fabulist: Words & Art, Sin Fronteras/Writers without Borders, great weather for MEDIA as well…

Vince Lateano, drums Peter Barshay, bass Ben Stolorow, piano All jazz players welcome to take the stage. Or just come to listen. No cover charge. If you can’t make it into the shop, you can catch the live stream on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help pay the trio and support the stream are much appreciated! Bird & Beckett adheres to the guaranteed fair wage standard promoted by the Independent Musicians Alliance.

Noertker’s Moxie Annelise Zamula – tenor sax, flute, clarinet.Brett Carson – piano.Jason Levis – drums.Bill Noertker – contrabass, compositions.Tonight Noertker’s Moxie will be debuting some selections from a work-in-progress—a series of odd little ditties inspired by Samuel Beckett’s odd little novel Watt. The show will be recorded in anticipation of an upcoming “Noertker’s Moxie Live at Bird and Beckett” CD. Bassist/composer Bill Noertker has been active in the Bay Area jazz and avant-garde scene since the late 1980s. Since 2001, he has lead his own ensemble, Noertker’s Moxie, as a forum for compositions inspired by visual art, architecture, poetry, cinema, and sculpture. These compositions provide a framework for improvisation that is both melodic and textural; with an emphasis on creative, free-ranging interplay amongst the musicians. If you can’t make it into the shop, you can catch the live stream on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help…