Bird & Beckett is presenting an occasional sequence of Sunday morning streamed conversations from the bookshop stage on topics of interest to the neighborhood and the city. You can find them on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. Can’t tune in at the appointed time? They’ll stay up in the same places for viewing…

Great shows this weekend, right through Valentine’s Day on Sunday! Read up on the weekend right here! Friday, 2/12, 7:30pm, it’s trombonist Rick Brown’s quartet featuring pianist Sharman Duran, with terrific colleagues Carl Herder on bass and Pepe Jacobo on drums — a really marvelous aggregation of musicians sure to offer up a fascinating 90…

San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita Kim Shuck continues to host the twice-monthly Bird & Beckett poetry series on Zoom, with the assistance of Brett Benson. The readings now take place on the second and fourth Monday of each month. At 7pm. Bring your work! Tonight, the featured readers are Dan Brady and E. K. Keith,…

Eric Shifrin, piano & vocals Joe Kyle, Jr., bass Randy Lee Odell, drums Get in with the In Crowd. Bring your wallet! live streamed on YouTube and Facebook. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation / pay what your economics allow at this link. From Jelly Roll to Gene Autrey, you’re in…

Smith Dobson V, vibraphone Jeffrey Burr, guitar Eric Markowitz, bass Tony Johnson, drums Two sets of jazz standards and originals, live streamed on YouTube and Facebook. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation / pay what your economics allow at this link. Steeped in music at a young age — the son…

The reigning tenor player of our place and time, Noel Jewkes has been respected and adulated for his lovely work on the horn for decades. He knows his way around any number of other instruments as well, and pens instantly classic tunes with alacrity. He was just a kid out in Utah when he started…

Simon Rowe – organ Dave McNab – guitar Brian Kendrick – drums Simon Rowe’s organ trio can be heard outdoors every other Saturday afternoon from 1-3pm on Wilder Street, just up the block from Canyon Market. They hold forth from a patio just above street level, with the music wafting right down to Diamond Street.…

It’s with a heavy heart that we note the loss of our good friend Dean Reilly two weeks ago. This one is for him. Tony Johnson and Glen Deardorff bring Charlie McCarthy and Al Obidinski to the bandstand to pay homage. Dean was something of a legendary figure in San Francisco jazz history, though one…

  Classics of literature are most fully lived in the consciousness of individual readers. Known or unknown, such works abide. One such case is The Gate of Horn, the debut work by Gertrude Rachel Levy, a University of London archeologist. Long out of print, it was sent forth in 1948 into the post-war world, galvanizing…

Tammy Hall brings Gary Brown on bass and Deszon Claiborne for a classic piano trio date, covering material from the gospel tinged to the blues to pop and always landing in the sophisticated elegance of straight ahead jazz. Catch the trio’s 90-minute performance on our facebook page or youtube channel And do please help us pay the musicians…

Danny Bittker, clarinets & steel drum Joyce McBride, piano Scott Foster, guitar Guitarist Scott Foster offers a wonderful array of ensembles at Bird & Beckett on the third Friday of each month, and he has another in store for us tonight. Tonight, Danny Bittker brings his clarinets and steel drums to the party. This will…

Occasional Sunday mornings at 10, we host an hour-long, live-streamed conversation between and among local writers, scholars, activists and others on topics of particular and timely interest to Bay Area residents. This morning, Kitty Costello, co-editor of a new anthology  of Muslim American writers’ essays, fiction and poetry on a variety of themes — identity,…

Greg Jacobs was born in London and grew up in San Rafael, where he started playing classical piano as a child. At twelve, he was inspired by the music of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Claude Debussy and local pianist Zack Hornstein, who rehearsed with Greg’s brother, Josh, at their home, playing blues and Dylan covers.…

The Shack-Shaking Music of HowellDevine “There is no blues band performing today as different as HowellDevine—nor as delightful.” ~ Lee Hildebrand, Living Blues Magazine/SF Chronicle Triple threat talent, Joshua Howell (guitar, harmonica, vocals) and percussion savant, Pete Devine (drums, washboard), plus veteran upright bassist, Joe Kyle Jr. deftly mix Delta/Country Blues with wildly syncopated rhythms to create a rollicking present-day sound…

Jinx returns to Glen Park, hot on the heels of his trio date across the bay at Piedmont Piano, with Kenan O’Brien on bass and Ken Owen on drums. Sure, he’s a rockabilly star, but he’s also devoted to the pioneering work of Charlie Christian and the jazz guitar styles of Wes Montgomery, Grant Green,…

After performing on trumpet and piano in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1970’s and 80’s, notably with Mark Levine and Chuck Clark, Tom Reynolds earned a B.A. in Music from UCBerkeley in 1982 and kept at it; but in 1988 he veered off into tech. In 2014, he returned to the music, playing…

  A slight change in plans brings us balafon maestro Mohammed Kouyate in a duo set with his student, Dan, on balafon.  For the second set, a trio with Dan on vibes with drummer Michael Mitchell and bassist Tyler Harlow. Rebecca Holtz can’t join us tonight, but sends her love and best wishes. Tonight will…

“It’s never over when one person remembers you.” Sunday morning, join us for an hour’s discussion of the book Death in the Tenderloin and the individual residents whose lives are commemorated in this volume. Geoff Link, editor, and writers Marjorie Beggs and Tom Carter explore the motivations behind and circumstances surrounding the publication of this…

Adam Shulman, organ Jeffrey Burr, guitar Smith Dobson, drums Adam’s trio will draw from the Great American Songbook and the bebop canon. Catch this show on our facebook page or youtube channel Support the musicians your donation by Paypal (to [email protected]), Venmo (@birdandbeckett) or the Cash app ($BirdBeckett). $20 is nice, but pay what you…

Smith Dobson V, saxophone Keith Saunders, piano Eric Markowitz, bass Tony Johnson, drums Catch this show on our facebook page or youtube channel Support the musicians your donation by Paypal (to [email protected]), Venmo (@birdandbeckett) or the Cash app ($BirdBeckett). $20 is nice, but pay what you can! $20-200 sliding scale This outing of the 230…

Concerned about the fate of the sincere reader in the sincere reader’s rigorous solitude, Walker believes it might have to be Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy that will guide his thoughts this time out… a book with breadth to match its depth, not to mention its fourfold humorousness. A patchwork encyclopedia, an epic mosaic. Too grand…

Inaugurating a series of occasional Sunday morning chats, Valerie Luu was at Bird & Beckett on February 21st in conversation with Jeremy Dan Fish via live stream to talk about her book, with Andria Lo, Chinatown Pretty! You can play back the conversation that took place on facebook or youtube From our pre-event post:  They’ll…

It’s been a year-plus since James and Grant made the scene at Bird & Beckett — two extraordinary musicians backed by two more extraordinary musicians. A date not to be missed! James Mahone, saxophone Grant Levin, piano Josh Thurston-Milgrom, bass Genius Wesley, drums          

Guitarist Scott Foster and his colleagues David Boyce on saxophone, Charles Thomas on bass and Cairo McCockran on drums dig deep into just a couple of notable African-American practitioners of the art as a nod to Black History Month. Among other lapidary pursuits, they’ll polish the facets of a few gems by harpist and composer…

Live jazz streamed from the bookshop stage on Valentine’s Day! View it at tinyurl.com/3aegq9L6 Find the schedule and donate at that same link!   Three combos live in the moment on the Bird & Beckett stage: The Simon Rowe Organ Trio The Tammy Lynne Hall Trio tbd – a quartet   Three combos presented in…