Breaking news! Tonight, 10/1/21, JaZzline Institute Director Afrikahn Jamal Davys was here with BAJABA Jazz Masters Calvin Keys and Dawan Muhammad to present bassist Heshima Mark Williams with a BAJABA Jazz Master Award for 2021! Check our video of tonight’s show (on fb & yt) to catch the award presentation, which took place on the set break! We’re proud and pleased to host this momentous event!

The Brother Khalil Abdullah Quartet
Khalil Abdullah, guitar
Anne Sajdera, piano
Heshima Mark Williams, bass
Genius Wesley, drums

Live in the shop and viewable as a live stream  (and after the fact) on YouTube or Facebook.

Doors open at 7:20pm. Music at 7:30pm.
$20 cash cover charge at the door.

Call for reservations – 415-586-3733 during regular store hours, Tuesday to Sunday, noon to six pm.

Proof of vaccination required on entry; masks required while in the shop. BYOB. Please only lower your mask only when sipping whatever it is your sipping. Thanks!

Brother Khalil Abdullah was born into a NYC household filled with the sounds of jazz, classical, blues and R&B. On any given day, one could hear Basie’s swing, Duke’s genius, Sassy, Dexter, Earth Wind and Fire, or a myriad of other greats, while his formerly-competitive lindy dancing mom would glide across the kitchen like it was The Savoy. At age 9, he took up the alto saxophone and excelled at it for years, with mom placing sheet music of jazz classic after jazz classic in front of him. At age 19, he realized the sound he was looking for was on the guitar and made the switch. After practicing for less than two years, and at the encouragement of lifelong inspiration and friend Calvin Keys, Br Khalil auditioned for the SFSU jazz band. He beat a dozen guitarists for the chair. In the early 1990s, Br Khalil co-founded the socially conscious hip hop group Riot Goin On, which would go on to sign with Atlantic before disbanding. He has performed, recorded and toured with many notable greats in jazz, hip hop, R&B, and world music. Today, Brother Khalil’s singular focus is dedication to The Soul and Blues of Improvisational Black Music. With the ever increasing academic-ness of jazz music, he strives to stay connected to and champion the real roots and source of the music. Br Khalil Abdullah is currently a recording artist and A&R Rep for LifeForce Jazz Records, as well as board member of The JaZzLine INSTITUTE.

Anne Sajdera, a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with a B.Mus. in Composition, has been active on the Bay Area jazz scene since 2001 as leader of her own ensembles and performing with other artists such as Alexa Weber Morales, Sandy Cressman and Terrence Brewer. She has performed in many of the Bay Area’s most frequented performance venues including the San Jose Jazz Festival (Alexa Weber Morales), Fillmore Jazz Festival (Sandy Cressman), The California Jazz Conservatory, Herbst Theater in San Francisco and the nationally recognized SFJAZZ (Terrence Brewer). Her trio with Gary Brown on bass and Deszon Claiborne on drums depicts the unique flexibility of the piano trio format with virtuostic arrangements of Brazilian and American repertoire as well as original compositions. With her first album, Azul, featuring the legendary Airto Moreira, co-produced by Ray Obiedo and released by Bijuri Records in 2012, her exquisite touch, rhythmic acuity, melodic resourcefulness and skills as both composer and arranger gained her a place on a JAZZIZ Magazine 2012 Top Ten Critic’s Poll and was named as one of Latin Jazz Corner’s Great Latin Jazz Albums from 2012. Created from a chance meeting at a jazz club in Prague 2014, Anne Sajdera’s latest project, New Year, was released in November of 2018 and features two award-winning young composer/instrumentalists from Prague: Miroslav Hloucal (trumpet) & Jan Fečo (alto sax), a special guest appearance by the renowned sax player Bob Mintzer, as well as some of the finest musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area. Produced by Ray Obiedo & released by Bijuri Records, DownBeat Magazine chose it for the December 2018 Editor’s Pick list and Jazz Station Blog included it in the 2018 Best Instrumental Jazz Albums list.

Bassist Heshima Mark Williams and drummer Genius Wesley are well known to Bird & Beckett audiences from many performances on our stage. Heshima, who we first met when he tumbled down from his aerie in Diamond Heights two decades ago, now crosses over from the East Bay to bring his massive talents and four decades-plus of experience to bear. For a two-year stretch in 2014-2016, Heshima held a monthly residency as a bandleader in our Saturday night “jazz club” series bringing in dates with harpist Destiny Muhammad, trumpeter Kenny Hawkins, pianist Muziki Roberson and the Ways & Means Committee among others. Before and since, he’s led his own ensembles and has often been featured here with Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids as well as with Avotcja & Modúpue. Heshima studied under the first African-American classical bassist in the Boston Symphony, Dr. Ortiz Walton, and has toured with trombonist Julian Priester; trumpeter Eddie Henderson; saxophonists Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Simmons and Idris Ackamoor (as a member of The Pyramids); vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson; and pianist Jeff Chimenti.  He has also recorded on albums by Julian Priester and Bobby Hutcherson, as well as Japanese pianist Saya Saitol, jazz blues vocalist Lady Memphis and jump blues vocalist Lavay Smith; The Pyramids; saxophonist Robert Stewart; and guitarist Calvin Keyes, among others.  Along the way, Heshima has performed with countless other Bay Area artists, including jazz violinist India Cook, vibraphonist Yancey Taylor, and Destiny Muhammed, “Harpist from the Hood.” Destiny herself will be at Bird & Beckett with her trio on December 3rd, so mark your calendar!

Drummer Genius Wesley is a young force on the Bay Area jazz scene who came into our field of view in January 2019 when trumpeter Noah Frank brought him on board for a Roy Hargrove tribute; he wasn’t yet 18 and was already renowned as one of the Bay Area’s great jazz talents. Since then, he’s held and exploded the rhythm on a dozen dates, fronting his own working trio with Luis Peralta and Isaac Coyle, backing poet Avotcja, vocalists Denise Perrier and Kalil Amar Wilson, and working with groups including Noah Frank’s Sueños, the Grant Levin Trio & Quartet, the Kai Lyons Trio and the James Mahone Quartet. As Avotcja has noted, Genius’s parents knew what they were doing when they named him Genius!