Noel Jewkes, reeds and flute Grant Levin, piano Chris Amberger, bass Josh Setala, drums $20 cash cover charge, byob For reservations, call 415-586-3733 Noel Jewkes is a legend among Bay Area jazz fans for his six-plus decades on the scene as a master of the tenor saxophone and any number of allied instruments, a disciple…

Lew Tabackin, flute & tenor saxophone Essiet Okon Essiet, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums $20 cash cover charge; byob Reservations, call 415-586-3733 In transit between an 8-date/12-day tour in Japan and a booking at the Monterey Jazz Festival, master musician Lew Tabackin stops off at Bird & Beckett in San Francisco for a trio date. From…

Bob Kenmotsu, tenor saxophone Keith Saunders, piano Eric Markowitz, bass Tony Johnson, drums $20 suggested donation; byob for reservations, call 415-586-3733 Drummer Tony Johnson’s monthly 4th Fridays residency continues! His quartet features musicians with long experience in San Francisco, New York, St. Louis and internationally. Tony arrived in San Francisco from Australia in 1959 and…

Walker Brents III presents a talk once a month at Bird & Beckett on a variety of subjects, from poets to philosophers to mystics, folktales to tall tales…   With regard to today’s talk on Friedrich Schiller, he says, “Schiller’s thoughts bring us through a cosmos of art-wisdom that encompasses Kant, the French Revolution, Rousseau…

  The Tony Johnson Quartet Friday 9/22 at 5:30pm Drummer Tony Johnson swam ashore from Australia in 1959 and hit North Beach swingin’. The singer Bev Kelly led a date at the Coffee Gallery in October 1960 with Pony Poindexter on saxophone, Flip Nunez on piano, Johnny Allen on bass and Tony, himself, on drums,…

Ron Jackson, guitar Essiet Okon Essiet, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums $20 cover charge at the door; byob reservations: 415-586-3733 New York-based jazz master of the seven-string guitar Ron Jackson returns to Bird & Beckett with Essiet Okon Essiet on bass and Sylvia Cuenca on drums — one stop on a tour that’s taking him from…

There are plenty of reasons to come down to Bird & Beckett! We sell books and records six days a week, open Tuesday to Sunday from noon to six. And then there are the shows — ten of them in the two weeks between the Joe McKinley Quartet date on the 16th and the weekend…

Glen Park writer Beth Winegarner presents her new book on the buried history of San Francisco’s long gone cemeteries… with a little help from “Here Lies a Story”‘s Courtney Minick. San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History, pub date Aug. 28 (call Bird & Beckett to order your copy now!), traces the international city’s settler…

Joel Eis at the podium addressing a student protest at CSU Fresno, 1970. Author Joel Eis, hosted and introduced by poet, bandleader, musicologist and KPFA/KPOO dj Avotcja, presents his memoir, Standin’ in a Hard Rain: The Making of a Revolutionary Life. Thursday 9/14 at 7pm Joel Eis has a bookshop with a radical bent in San…