“This jazz baby makes the ’20s roar again and swings out ’30s tunes buoyantly enough to float away even the Great Depression…”    San Jose Mercury News  Roberta Donnay & the Prohibition Mob Band wail on 1920-30s swing, blues, and roots music in the jazz tradition. About their just-released cd “My Heart Belongs to Satchmo,” critic Andrew Gilbert, writing in Berkeleyside, says “Donnay interprets tunes long embedded in Armstrong’s repertoire, like “Up A Lazy River,” “Basin Street Blues” and “A Kiss to Build a Dream On.” But she also uncovers obscure gems like “I’m In the Market For You,” “Ol’ Man Mose,” and a version of “Pennies From Heaven” featuring previously unrecorded lyrics by Dan Hicks, with whom Donnay toured and recorded for a decade.” Tonight, Rebecca fronts for wiseguys Darren Johnston, trumpet, Danny Lubin-Ladin, trombone; Sam Kady, piano; Fred Randolph, bass; and Jack Dorsey, drums for two sets of…

Rafael Mandelman will visit Bird & Beckett Saturday the 19th to discuss the issues and his candidacy for the Board of Supervisors District 8 position in this June’s election. The winner in June will run again for a full term in November. Rafael is an attorney specializing in urban development issues and has served on the Board of Trustees for CCSF since 2012.

The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents… The return of flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny! Dmitri Matheny Group JAZZ FROM THE SILVER SCREEN Featuring Matt Clark piano, Ron Belcher bass and Mark Lee drums. Voted “NW Instrumentalist of the Year” in the recent Seattle Earshot Jazz Golden Ear Awards, flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny leads an all-star band in an evening of Jazz From The Silver Screen. Showcasing favorite movie themes from the 1930s to the present day, the program includes music from The Wizard of Oz (1939), An Affair To Remember (1957), Black Orpheus (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Days of Wine And Roses (1962), The Sandpiper (1965), The Godfather(1972), The Long Goodbye (1973), Chinatown (1974), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Blade Runner (1982), Round Midnight (1986) and Manchester By The Sea (2016). Flugelhorn master Dmitri Matheny has been lauded as “one of the most emotionally expressive improvisers of his generation” (International Review of Music). An honors graduate of Berklee College of Music, Dmitri Matheny vaulted onto the jazz scene in the 1990s as the protégé of jazz legend Art Farmer. Since then he has garnered critical acclaim and a loyal international following, releasing…

Tonight, it’s all about Love! Songs of Love…. Lost, Found, Old, New & sometimes Blue Denise Perrier with Grant Levin, piano Chris Amberger, bass       Mark Lee, drums Vocalist Denise Perrier was born in Louisiana, and moved with her family to the Bay Area at the age of five. She’s had a thirty-year career performing locally and touring Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Along the way, she’s been dubbed “The Voice with a Heart.” Jazz Times magazine reviewer Harvey Siders — speaking of the record she recorded with sax legend Houston Person and Tammy Hall on piano — noted that “Ms Perrier boasts a gorgeous instrument; call it a burnished contralto.  When she sustains a tone, it remains unswerving. Yet when she decides to go for a high note…she can leap an octave with ease and vocal strength. She swings freely, improvising intelligently and showing no need to rely on…

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFgJ0GZ0CrY” /] Jim Peterson, alto sax Rolf Johnson, trumpet and piano Scott Foster, guitar Dennis Criteser, bass Dan Foltz, drums Five San Francisco players celebrate the points of musical contact they’ve had with the township jazz of South Africa.  South African jazz, also called Township Jive and Kwela Jazz, is world renowned in large part due to the recognition granted outside the continent to the work of Abdullah Ibrahim, Johnny Dyani and Dudu Pukwana, Hugh Masakala, Miriam Mekaba and many others. Kwela itself is named after the guitarist Allen Kwela, born in Natal province, who moved to Johannesburg in the early 1950s and influenced a generation and more! check this link! Kwela fuses folk music of the townships with American jazz. Dennis Criteser, Rolf Johnson and Jim Peterson, along with drummer Andrew Scott, dug into this music in San Francisco back in the day, performing as Kombo Kwela, named for…

Strength & Vulnerability Tour! Kicking off with this first concert at Bird & Beckett. The first half of the evening will feature ♡ just Suzanne playing her acoustic, original music. The second half is pure jazz standards! She’ll be joined by Greg Sankovich on piano, Doug Pohorski on bass, and Steve La Porta on drums. $10 cover.  

Avotcja, an Afro-Nuyorican poet and musician who has had an outsized influence on the Bay Area cultural scene through her poetry, her music with the ensemble called Modupue, and her radio shows on KPOO and KPFA, welcomes her long-time friend, the Puerto Rican poet Ramon Pinero. METAPHORIC MOFONGO & THE HEALING FIRE OF POETIC WORDSONG with the Bilingual medicine of RAMON PIÑERO & AVOTCJA  

Classic, outlaw and honky tonk country music from an all-star band led by pedal steel master Joe Goldmark! Mitch Polzak, the heart-throb mayor of Port Costa, fronts the band on lead guitar and vocals, flanked by the brilliant Hank Maninger on bass guitar and vocals and the Zen poet-drummer Kenny Owen. It doesn’t get any better than this!

Appearing at Bird & Beckett Books on Mother’s Day, Gail Dobson and her Quintet plus guest student singers! Gail will spolight the music of Gershwin, Jobim, Sting , Pharoah Sanders, Billie Holiday and other great songwriters, and some spoken word — bringing the message, “Peace on Earth!” Her musicians on the date will include Smith Dobson and Masaru Koga on reeds; Luis Salcedo on guitar; John Wiitala on bass; Vince Lateano on drums. She’ll also be spotlighting the talents of a few of her wonderful young voice students.  Gail herself is a singer of long experience on the San Francisco jazz scene. Native born San Franciscan, Gail Dobson, an endearing jazz vocalist with a smoky, amber contralto, traces her performance history to such legendary North Beach haunts as the Purple Onion, the Hungry i, the Jazz Workshop, and the Bach, Dancing, and Dynamite Society in Half Moon Bay. She is currently the…

The Dr. Legato Express pulls into Bird & Beckett!  Veteran reed player Noel Jewkes (Dr. Legato) brings in a group to revisit his classic 1978 outing on Revelation Records, “Just Passin’ Thru.” Noel Jewkes – saxes Dave Bendikeit – tpt & fluglehorn Keith Saunders – piano Chris Amberger – bass Mark Lee – drums Kay Kostopoulos – vocals “A prodigious multi-instrumentalist who’s been a mainstay on the Bay Area jazz scene for more than half a century, Noel Jewkes is a compelling, cool-toned tenor player and an accomplished clarinetist, flutist, alto, and soprano saxophonist. Dubbed Dr. Legato for his long, fluid, Lester Young-inspired melodic saxophone lines, he’s also a skilled arranger and original composer…(and)… a graceful accompanist who can add a jolt of electricity to just about any musical situation.” — Andrew Gilbert, Oakland Magazine, 11/14/17 read the full article at: http://www.oaklandmagazine.com/November-2017/Get-on-the-Legato-Xpress/

Pass the word! Jerry Ferraz, a permanent fixture since days gone by on the Bird & Beckett cultural front, invites you over to his flat and sunny backyard this Saturday, May 12th, 1-5pm, for chili & salad & garlic bread, plus: — live jazz in the gazebo by the Vince Lateano Trio — a live auction of paintings by some of North Beach’s (& other climes’) finest artists — a silent auction of a few select items — camaraderie and high spirits It’s a rent party for the bookshop, so bring some cash to throw in the treasure chest, and don’t forget your checkbook either, ’cause it’s a benefit to gather the funds needed to keep Bird & Beckett humming along through another summer! Call the store if you’re coming (415-586-3733) — or send us an email ([email protected]) — and we’ll give you the address and directions! Starting bids for the…

Touring out of Chicago… Jason Stein – bass clarinet Jason Roebke – bass Mike Pride – drums read up on Jason at his website: https://jasonsteinmusic.com/biography Read this article: chicagoreader.com-jason-stein Locksmith Isidore has three albums to its credit, released in 2008, 2009 and 2010, all released to overwhelmingly positive reviews… e.g., Wire Magazine Review JASON STEIN’S LOCKSMITH ISIDORE A Calculus of Loss Clean Feed Records 2008 This intriguingly named project – Isidore was Stein’s grandfather – isn’t the jolly klezmer-flavoured project you might have been led to expect, but a mostly quiet and thoughtful examination of melodic, textural and timbral ideas. At one level, it’s a version of the sax/bass/drums trio, but translated to bass clarinet, the soft plunk of Kevin Davis’s cello, and Mike Pride’s restless but unhurried examination of struck surfaces. As Pride hits his cymbals on “Nurse Ellen”, over an accelerating and urgent dialogue between the other two, it…