Our traditional last-Sunday-of-the-year booking… a reason for cheer!

“Winter Solstice” – A concert of both lively and contemplative music to close out the old year and bring in the new. Murray Low – piano Michael Arnold – bass Brian Andres – drums John Calloway – flute Guest vocalist- Gabrielle Rochblatt

Talk about your San Francisco jazz… On the fourth Friday of each month, our weekly jazz in the bookshop series features The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band — aka The Chuck Peterson Quintet — five musicians whose history on the local jazz scene dates back 60 years, to the very early 1950s. Read more here.

On tour from NYC, drummer Sylvia Cuenca and bassist Essiet Okon Essiet join forces with bi-coastal pianist Ben Stolorow. Sylvia grew up in San Jose and comes out from Manhattan frequently to gig up and down the coast and be with family, fitting in many wonderful shows at Bird & Beckett to the delight of our audiences. She was with Joe Henderson’s quartet for four years and with Clark Terry’s band for seventeen, has worked in trios with bassists Charlie Haden and George Mraz, and has been a first call drummer in NYC for decades. As for Essiet, he was born in Nebraska and grew up in Portland and worked in Europe in the early 1980s with Famoudou Don Moye, moving to NYC in 1983. There, he came to fame in Bobby Watson’s band and along the way he’s played with Abdullah Ibrahim, Art Blakey, Kenny Barron, Freddie Hubbard, Cedar…

From NYC: Peck Allmond, trumpet & reeds Keith Saunders, piano John Wiitala, bass Vince Lateano, drums with special guest Ina Perez on violin $20 cover charge $10 for students / musicians / low income check out this recording of Peck with John Wiitala on bass in an an all-star quintet One of the top trumpeters on the national jazz scene, Brooklyn-based since 1993, Peck Allmond grew up in Berkeley, nurtured in Berkeley Unified”s famous elementary school music programs developed in the early 1960s by Dr. Herb Wong. Peck quickly gained national prominence after graduating from the Berkeley High jazz program run by Phil Hardymon. Peck returns frequently to the Bay Area to visit family, and has frequently assembled this quartet in the past several years — with drummer Vince Lateano, bassist John Wiitala and pianist Keith Saunders. This will be the quartet’s third appearance at Bird & Beckett in the past two…

In the spirit of the season, vocalist Larry Smith brings us a warm, joyful and healing evening of song. You can expect elegantly swinging renditions of traditional and seasonal jazz, contemporary and Brazilian tunes, and undoubtedly his interpretation of Nat Cole’s “Christmas Song” ending with sincere wishes for a very happy Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Solstice and New Year. Along for the sleigh ride will be the consummate and seasoned jazz instrumentalists Jim Davidson on piano Ron Belcher on bass Bob Blankenship on drums

Scott Foster Quartet takes a look at the famous Wes Montgomery/Wynton Kelly collaboration. Scott Foster, guitar Ben Stolorow, piano Noah Schenker, bass Omar Aran, drums $10-20 suggested donation $5 suggested for students/musicians/low income

San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck and peripatetic troubadour Jerry Ferraz present our twice-monthly poetry readings, every 1st and 3rd Monday — two featured readers followed by an open mic. Tonight, they’ve enlisted Norm Mattox and Julian Tirhma as the featured poets.  Norm is a legendary SFUSD math teacher. His poetry has featured at Poem Jam at the Main Library and in the most recent chapbook from United Booksellers, “The City is Already Speaking.” Julian née Sara Mithra hovers between genre and gender, border mongering and mongreling. Their first book, If the Color is Fugitive (Nomadic Press, 2018) follows vagrants around the collapsing frontier during a queer elsewhen. Read their essay about marginalization and anger, “Biking the Fringe,” in VOICES (Brain Mill Press). They teach writing to young people.

A powerhouse Americana guitar duo of right-side up finger picking (Stevie Coyle) and upside down flat picking (Glenn Houston). The Quitters deliver a performance spiced with humor and serendipity. To quote the Strawberry Music Festival: “Stevie Coyle and Glenn Houston make up the dynamic guitar duo, The Quitters. Having each quit some of the best bands in the business, both are late founding members of The Waybacks and each have performed at Strawberry in other configurations. Stevie Coyle has a long and illustrious career as an entertainer that began well before birth and Glenn Houston’s well decorated history in music is best known to berry heads for his founding role of powerhouse Americana quintet, Houston Jones. As individuals, both are renowned players in music circles. Now they have joined forces, to the delight of California audiences, to become a right-handed, right-side up fingerpicking and left-handed upside down flatpicking twosome. Mostly…

$20 cover charge; $10 for students/musicians/low income Kwela-kwela is the lively music of Cape Town, South Africa that originated in the 1950s, centering on the pennywhistle and fusing South African tribal/folk music of the 40s and 50s and the original music of Malawi, with plenty of reference to American jazz and the British skiffle music that itself was a revival of an American street jazz style of the 1920s. The word kwela is usually translated from the Zulu as “get up,” and kwela-kwela was also common street slang for the police vans that descended regularly on the residents of the townships.  The young men who played the pennywhistle on street corners often served as lookouts to warn those enjoying themselves in the shebeens of the arrival of the police. Inside, the pennywhistle, augmented by horns, guitars, bass and drums, energized the dance music. Jim Peterson, saxophone Rolf Johnson, trumpet Scott Foster, guitar Dennis Criteser, guitar…

$10-20 suggested donation; $5 for students, musicians, low income. . Two of San Francisco’s top saxophone players go head to head, backed by an all-star rhythm section . . Smith Dobson and Andrew Speight, saxophones Keith Saunders, piano Eric Markowitz, bass Tony Johnson, drums

2nd year! Students in the SF Conservatory of Music’s “Roots, Jazz & American Music” BMUS degree program host their peers from Bay Area colleges and high schools. No cover charge. Donations to support the bookshop that supports the students are very much appreciated.

Joe Goldmark, pedal steel guitar Mitch Polzak, lead guitar and vocals Hank Maninger, bass guitar and vocals Kenny Owen, drums The Seducers are well into their third year of monthly (2nd Sunday) shows at Bird & Beckett, delivering country classics and originals, honky tonk laments and outlaw anthems.