The Scott Foster Trio explores music associated with the finest guitar trios through the years. Scott Foster, guitar Matt Montgomery, bass Omar Aran, drums       suggested cover charge — $20 sliding scale — $2 to $200 Support live music & the musicians who play it!  Use the links below: Take in the show…

Sueños is a high energy quintet fusing jazz with elements from hip-hop, R&B, gospel, neo-soul and indie rock in tunes penned by trumpeter Noah Frank, improvising and exploring as they go. Brandon Farmer, Drums Curtis Aikens, Bass Kai Lyons, Guitar Eli Maliwan, Tenor Sax Noah Frank, Trumpet www.suenosjazz.com

Born in Manhasset, New York, pianist David Udolf moved to the Bay Area in early 1991. A sought after sideman, he has played with Terri Bryant of the Fifth Dimension, saxophonist Herb Geller, R&B legend Bo Diddley, and toured nationally for six years with San Francisco’s own legendary New Pickle Circus. Local artists he has…

Leslie Simon will be reading from her new novel The Divine Comic (Spuyten Duyvil) on Saturday, September 26, 2:00-3:00 p.m. Bird and Beckett Books in San Francisco will be hosting. Please RSVP here tinyurl.com/divinecomicRSVP to receive the zoom link for the reading.  

Glen Pearson tours in Count Basie’s chair with the Count Basie Orchestra, and heads the Music Department at the College of Alameda. Glen has also been pianist and orchestrator with Jimmy Scott, Ernestine Anderson, Dianne Reeves, Marlena Shaw, Bobby Hutcherson, Delfeayo Marsalis, James Moody, Frank Morgan, Chico Freeman and Will Downing, served for eleven years…

Stephanie Woodford, piano and vocals Curtis Aikens, bass Noah Frank, drums The Stephanie Woodford Trio plays a blend of original music and covers, focusing on Black-American music from old school to contemporary. Stephanie’s original songs touch on themes of police brutality and discrimination. Scroll down for links to the stream on YouTube and facebook. suggested…

Delusion, Poetry, and Truth…one of many possible groups of three…here as we grapple with conglomerations of accumulated folly, as democratic citizens often do…Actually, we know the ways of each one, as they transform in and out of each other:  delusion, poetry, and truth.  The art of thinking for one’s self:  the imperative of radical sincerity,…

Neeli Cherkovski will hang out on the bookshop’s stage to chat with you one-on-one, at a polite social distance, fully masked, for five minutes or so at a time, about his re-released Bukowski bio, his book of conversations with the legendary poet & drummer Clark Coolidge and his own latest poetry collection, Hang on to…

The Eli Maliwan Trio consists of Eli on Tenor Saxophone, Curtis Aikens on Upright Bass, and Kai Lyons on Electric Guitar. These three musicians and friends have played together in various projects and in different combinations over the years and their deep musical communication has developed into a unique and personal sound. The trio will…

  Hop on our live stream to funky soulville Todd Swenson leads the band Marc Levine on bass Larry Vann on drums   suggested cover charge — $20 sliding scale — $2 to $200 Support live music & the musicians who play it!  Use the links below: Take in the show on YouTube  or  Facebook…

All day long Monday, in eleven 30-minute sets, professional Bay Area jazz musicians take the bookshop stage in duos, trios and quartets!  All live streamed to you via YouTube & Facebook. Scroll down for the schedule! The show will be at its best when you have a large screen and nice speakers in play, but…

Bassist Charles Thomas plays jazz, soul, funk, reggae, classical — anything you could want. All of it with consummate skill, exuberance and expressive beauty.  At Bird & Beckett, Charles plays jazz. He’s been heard from our stage countless times, most often in the company of drummers Mark Lee and the late Jimmy Ryan and pianist…

Darren Johnston  / Adam Shulman / Lorca Hart         trumpet / piano / drums   Jazz in San Francisco Live streamed from Bird & Beckett Thursday, September 3rd – 7:30 pm suggested cover charge — $20 sliding scale — $2 to $200 Support live music & the musicians who play it!  Use…

  Scott R. Looney, piano André Custodio, drums explore the boundaries of jazz in duo interplay, drawing inspiration from bop and avant traditions.  Use the links below to view & listen, and to help us pay the musicians. Take in the show on YouTube or Facebook Pay your “cover charge” – i.e., donate! $1-$200 sliding scale $10-20…

Songwriter Maurice Tani with his duo partner, the American bassist Mike Anderson, return to the Bird & Beckett stage for a program of his classic songs and some new ones. Maurice has been called a “cartographer of the human heart” (Scott Bloom, in The Bay Twang), and we think that sums it up pretty well.…

Walker Brents continues his exploration of the work of the great French-Algerian writer and philosopher, Albert Camus, author of novels including The Stranger, The Plague and The Fall, the short story volume Exile and the Kingdom and numerous plays, as well as key essay collections The Myth of Sisyphus, The Rebel and Algerian Chronicles. Camus…

Scott Foster plays from the sheaf of compositions he’s been producing during this “special period.” This is a special opportunity to get inside the workings of his mind and the play of his creative impulses. Our live streams are now accessed on both YouTube and Facebook! Suggested cover charge: $20 / sliding scale – $2…

Nothing says something like this amalgam of charm! Say the Flying Salvias, themselves, “Being locked up since March has provided much time to ponder.  The Flying Salvias are therefore finally acknowledging that what was previously described as a “lack of focus” is actually two separate identities masquerading as The Flying Salvias.  So, along those lines,…

Wednesday, 8/19* at 7:30 [postponed to 8/26] Walker Brents III on Albert Camus (part II). Thursday, 8/20 at 7:30 The Flying Salvias – words fail us!  Friday, 8/21 at 7:30 Scott Foster plumbs the Covid file – solo guitar, new compositions. Our live streams are now accessed on both YouTube and Facebook! Use the links…

Due to difficulties with the live stream technology, this performance has been postponed. Watch for their return on a Friday in a month or so. Despite the postponement, Kasey & Eric played two bebop tunes with elan before we decided to pull the plug for the evening–so our 18-year streak of consecutive weekly jazz dates…

Tom Huber embarks on a solo journey across a wide swath of genres and eras, playing classic tunes and original compositions. When you drop by for our live stream, if you’re not squeezing every dime, please donate generously — $20 suggeseted — so we can meet and exceed our guarantees to some fine Bay Area…

Sandra Poindexter, born and raised in Oakland,  studied classical violin from early childhood, and her musical experience flourished over the years to jazz, Cuban, mariachi and flamenco. For fifteen years, from the late 1980s to the mid-2000s, she recorded and toured with alto saxophone giant John Handy ‘s group, John Handy with Class, performing before…

As an acoustic player, Valerio’s repertoire spans from the classics of blues fingerpicking and the golden era of Chet Atkins to contemporary artists such as the legendary Tommy Emmanuel, Franco Morone, Pierre Bensusan, and Daniele Bazzani incorporating sounds from the Irish tradition, American folk, jazz, ragtime, and world music. In his hour of fingerstyle at…

Missed the show? You can view it and hear it here. Jump in at 5:40 and enjoy it. Up ’til then, it’s the logo and silence… This show was worth every penny! You’re indebted to the kind folks who donated to make it possible for these musicians to get a nice paycheck! Trumpeter Andrew Stephens…