Just about now, we can all use an evening that takes us away from the pain of our times. Scott, Eric and Smith will give us that, and will attest to the promise of better times coming. Three fine musicians of long association, all familiar to Bird & Beckett audiences from countless jazz dates over…

Q. R. Hand was a hip & humble & towering figure among San Francisco poets for decades, since his arrival from Brooklyn in 1970. We’ve just lost him at age 83. San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck hosts a reading in tribute to Q. R. featuring a number of poets who knew him well.  …

Eric Shifrin, jazz pianist par excellence and free spirit, has gathered the In Crowd in the City’s saloons and salons for decades. Tonight, he’s bringing in Ollie Dudek on bass and Mark Lee on drums for two eclectic sets of jazz pearls, pop tunes and your occasional novelty number. Gems from Jelly Roll Morton to…

The remarkable young vibraphonist Dan Neville has just returned from a year-long immersion in Cali, Colombia. While he had arrived in Cali with plans to stay from January-March 2020, Dan found himself stranded in Colombia as the pandemic hit and closed Colombia’s borders. Dan made good use of the time overseas, traveling frequently to Colombia’s…

Jazz, Poetry & Afrobop! Avotcja with the Genius Wesley Trio Avotcja lives and breathes as poet, musician, musicologist, broadcaster, mentor of young artists, friend and colleague of countless others. With her programs on KPOO (La Verdad Musical) and KPFA (Bebop, Cubop and the Musical Truth), she’s exhibited for decades her deep connection to Afro-Caribbean, African…

Larry Vann, the Groove Merchant, brings his long-time working trio, with Michael Warren on bass and Tim Landis on guitar, for 90 minutes of jazz, soul, blues and funk. Larry has performed with Curtis Mayfield, Elvis Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite, among a raft of superstars, and he’s played the Bird & Beckett stage many times,…

Kalil is one of the most riveting jazz vocalists to come along in a generation. He was raised here in the Bay Area on Nigerian Afrobeat and Highlife music, classically trained for the world’s opera stages, then spirited into a world of jazz, enraptured by the jewels of melody, rhythm and eloquence of the bountiful…

Joshua Raoul Brody has a half hour of song for you from the Bird & Beckett stage from 11:45pm to 12:15am tonight to ring out the old year and bring on the new! Don’t fret if you just need to bury your head under your pillow tonight. It will be up for viewing the next…

Master guitarist Duncan James,  harmonically sophisticated and always swingin’, has played jazz on our stage countless times in the last couple of decades. He returns to Bird & Beckett for his traditional last-Sunday-of-the-year-booking, this time with Carla Kaufman on bass and Benny Watson on piano.   Tune in this evening at 7:30 pm on Facebook…

Wednesday 12/16 at 7:30pm, Walker Talks! Catch Walker Brents III, the store’s resident mythologist philosopher poet, holding forth on the gift of truth. Lewis Hyde’s book, The Gift, is the inspiring text here, with Truth the enriching theme, like an intuitive moral compass. Clean simple spare lines betokening beautiful proportions, inwardly sensed, like Shaker furniture…and…