Michael? First time Jerry booked him, I mentioned it to a couple regulars. Michael Koch!? Now I know what they mean. You’ll like this reading, so come out…. open mic follows. Jerry Ferraz runs the whole shebang. Ronald Sauer, nb surrealist, pinch hits for Robert Anbian tonight. Welcome to Birdnbeckettlandia!

Soul singer Derek Evans, with wicked Todd Swenson on guitar, Willie Riser on bass and Larry Vann on drums! Yeah, you bet! You don’t want to miss this.

  Grant Levin, piano. Chris Amberger, bass. Jeff Minnieweather, drums. . . . 2, 3, 4 Count it off with Grant Levin! Duos, trios, quartets… every 2nd, 3rd and 4th Sunday of the month  

Celebrating the first two seasons of titles from the independent publisher, Magra Books (magrabooks.com). Gillian Conoley will read from her just published chapbook, Preparing One’s Consciousness for the Avatar, along with Martha Ronk reading from her 2016 title, Unfamiliar Familiar; Art Beck from his new translation, Martial, Epigrams; Dennis Phillips from his Desert Sequence chapbook; and Neeli Cherkovski from his forthcoming Magra chapbook, Odes for Ezra Weston Pound. Part of the presentation will also be a memorial tribute to Ray DiPalma (1943-2016), whose For a Curved Surface is one of Magra’s initial offerings. Based in Los Angeles and Tuscany, Magra Books is a series of chapbooks, printed in editions of 300 copies, featuring unique works by important writers. Each volume, typically 32 pages in length, presents writers who are up to the all-encompassing challenge of producing work that strives to make “news that stays news.” Writers who are passionate about…

Henry Hung, trumpet Scott Foster, guitar Eric Markowitz, bass Omar Aran, drums The Scott Foster Quartet plays the music of Lee Morgan!  Lee Morgan was one of the top jazz trumpet stars of the late 1950s and 1960s, recording prolifically on Blue Note and other labels –featured on John Coltrane’s “Blue Trane” (1957) and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers’ “Moanin’” (1959) and scoring a huge hit as a leader with his Blue Note LP,  “The Sidewinder” (1963). His Jazz Messengers run produced 24 albums, and he recorded 17 albums as a leader after “The Sidewinder” made his name common parlance. At the break between sets this Friday evening and later following the second set, you’ll meet and hear from jazz scholarm dj and writer Larry Reni Thomas, who contributed substantially to the current  hit film documentary “I Called Him Morgan.” Larry wrote the book “The Lady Who Shot Lee Morgan”…

For a Bob Ernst bio, visit https://www.altertheater.org/about2 towards/away… The focus intensifies as the periphery disperses. Our hero is a stranger in a strange land. He finds himself running for his life in an alien landscape being pursued by something or someone he can’t quite make out. “Am I running towards, or am I running away or am I running towards away?” Fear, and a bit of the blues propels him further on into the desert, towards—? In the final moments, the periphery expands. a poetic narrative, accompanied by a percussion score and other exotic instrumentation, all rolled up tight into the personification of “one tiny, spec of hu-man”. Warning: he does get physical. Like the man says; “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Bob Ernst inhabits a stage as a world of his own devising. Nothing is predictable and everything is possible. He shunts, grunts and howls onomatopoeias…

In 1996, anthropologist Mike Youngblood purchased a second-hand motorcycle in India and spent nearly three years following a massive rural political movement called the Shetkari Sanghatana, spread out across the 120,000 square miles of India’s Maharashtra State.  In his travels, he experienced the movement side-by-side with increasingly rich capitalist farmers, with increasingly poor peasants and rural laborers, and with the paramount leader of the movement who sought to unify them all—a charismatic libertarian whom many followers purported to be a reincarnation of a benevolent “king of demons” from Indian mythology. Youngblood’s prize-winning book, Cultivating Community, explores this movement from the diverse perspectives of its participants. The book suggests new ways to think about leaders and the ordinary people who support them, often seemingly against their own best interests. Youngblood’s book is not just relevant to India—it offers insights on the puzzling nature of politics and political organizing anywhere in the world,…

Second Mondays, starting Monday, September 11th, Bird & Beckett will be hosting a jam session for the incoming class of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s brand new jazz BMUS (Bachelor of Music) degree program. The SFCM’s program is called “Roots, Jazz & American Music” and its first group of thirteen young students, drawn from all over the country, just arrived in town a couple weeks ago.  They’re on a four-year track towards a jazz bachelor’s degree that will ground them in the African roots of the music and take them through its full development and flowering as America’s most truly original musical genre. The RJAM program is directed by new Glen Park neighbor Simon Rowe. Simon is a jazz pianist who hails from Australia, spent a long stretch in St. Louis learning the music from legendary jazz musicians there, and spent the five years through 2016 directing the Brubeck…

Pianist Grant Levin leads duo, trio and quartet dates on the 2nd, 3rd & 4th Sundays of each month, respectively. This sequence will go down in the annals of San Francisco jazz history. Tonight, a duo! Bassist Charles Thomas is Grant’s duo partner this evening.  

Featuring some of the San Francisco region’s finest veteran bluegrass musicians, the Thundering Heard performs traditional bluegrass music, exceptionally well. Multi-instrumentalist and singer Victor Skidanenko, hailing from San Jose, is known as one of the finest banjo players on the West Coast and gives a deep traditional dimension to the band. Singing heartfelt leads and soaring tenor, Victor is an integral part of the band’s signature sound. He’s also the youngest member of the band, but with an old soul steeped in the tradition of this uniquely American music. You might have seen him perform with Rock Ridge, Jenny Lynn & Her Real Gone Daddies, Flash Crash & Thunder and the Central Valley Boys. Butch Waller was one of the first members of the band to play professional bluegrass in Northern California, and formed the band High Country in 1968. His distinct mandolin playing, firmly grounded in the Monroe style,…

A bare-bones theatrical afternoon at Bird & Beckett! Jeff DeMark headlines the program with his trademark mojo bunkum trance dance of mystery and poetic balderdash. Jeff has written and widely performed five theatrical monologues, two of which are available on DVD. He has performed his work at Bird and Beckett three times over the years. Though he lives in the small town of Blue Lake in Humboldt County, he lived for three years right here in Glen Park in the late 1980s. In addition to this monologues and other theatrical work, Jeff is also a songwriter and plays guitar in a group called LaPatina Band. He sometimes performs his stories with the group’s musical backing. He writes his own form of narrative/imagistic poetry and will read some of those, too. There may be an additional guest or two for this show. It will be free flowing. In Spoken Duets, Chris…

  The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents… Harvey Wainapel, reeds John Wiitala, bass Bryan Bowman, drums

  Art Lande, piano; Paul McCandless, saxophone; Erik Jekabson, trumpet; Peter Barshay, bass; Alan Hall, drums We thank Erik Jekabson for bringing Art Lande and Paul McCandless to Bird & Beckett in the company of Peter Barshay and Alan Hall. We’re honored, pleased and excited. About advance reservations/tickets: Because the store is small, it’s not practical to take advance reservations, except for individuals who would not be able to stand for the length of the set. If that’s the case, please call the morning of the concert. $20 cover charge.