Guitarist Scott Foster carries all the twenty years’ tradition of jazz in the bookshop!

And beginning with this January 2023 third-Friday date,
he returns our 2-1/2 hour Friday jazz “happy hour”
to its original start time of 5:30pm.

Henceforth, on Fridays you’ll find jazz in the bookshop from 5:30 to 8:00pm every week!

Lose the tensions of the work week at Bird & Beckett with old and new friends.

BYOB and a twenty for the band!

(Sundays, you’ll often find live music with a 5pm start time — check our calendar. Saturdays and other weeknights, you can generally count on a 7:30pm start with doors opening 10 minutes before showtime – check our calendar for that, too!  Reservations are gladly taken by phone – 415-586-3733 – for the evening shows. We don’t generally take reservations for the Friday and Sunday shows unless you have a specific need for a chair.) 

Way back in the fall of 2002, some 20+ year’s ago, neighborhood tenor player Chuck Peterson came down to the shop from Martha Street with a plea! After fifty years in the jazz business in San Francisco, he had retired from a long tenure in theatre district pit orchestras and his gigging had settled down to pretty much just a single gig, playing baritone sax in Congo Street resident/jazz legend Rudy Salvini’s big band which still held hold forth at the Lake Merced boathouse.

Chuck told us that that was too much heavy lifting to do without more activity to keep in shape and said that if we would give him a weekly booking he’d guarantee we would have good musicians no matter the pay. Said he’d have to take up golf if we didn’t!

We shook on the deal and full-on jazz at the bookshop was underway!

The Fridays have continued without interruption ever since– that’s well over a thousand shows on Fridays alone! And from the very beginning, Scott Foster was on the gig. Scott’s been our favorite Bay Area guitarist since we first heard  him, and he still is — no joke! Just ask our photographer/engineer, Angie Bennett! She’s the one who prodded the boss to give Scott his own date when even Switzerland couldn’t prevent dissension in the ranks of the jazz nations that came together in the duchy of Glen Park each Friday!

Chuck’s gone now, but his spirit is stronger than ever at Bird & Beckett! The jazz lives on!

With Scott holding down the third Fridays and Tony Johnson holding down the fourth Fridays, Chuck’s legacy is solid.

Every Friday henceforth, you’ll find live jazz in the bookshop from 5:30 ’til 8pm in the company of old friends, new friends, neighbors, tourists, interlopers & looky-loos. It’s nothing but fun.

First & fifth Fridays will be a grab-bag of great local jazz players and their combos, but 2nd Fridays will be the province of Eric & the In Crowd (Eric Shifrin on piano), while Scott Foster will bring in a fresh combo every 3rd Friday, and drummer Tony Johnson will own 4th Fridays, bringing in his quartet and the 230 Jones Street band on alternating months.

Mark  your calendars, too, for 3rd Sundays, when drummer Vince Lateano will lead a trio each month from 5-7pm!

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, but at Bird & Beckett, the swing has never been stronger!

BYOB and a twenty for the musicians!
Your ears, your enthusiasm and a little bread are what makes it all work!