BIRD & BECKETT CULTURAL LEGACY PROJECT
Jam sessions in San Francisco have a history as long as jazz has been played here. From the Barbary Coast to the present day, the session is one of the key ways the music has refreshed itself and brought old hands and young pups together. Vince Lateano has led a lot of them in his time and has been leading ours for years, a practice he’s carried from Pier 23 to the Dog Patch Saloon to the Seven Mile House to Sweetie’s Art Bar. Come enjoy the hearing the tradition unfold. No charge to play. Audience donations appreciated to help us pay the trio for its work!
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A preview of a work in progress with Linda Champagne, Carla Diamond, Trudy Fisher, Lori Gates, Patty Haze, David Katznelson, Harry Levy, Linda Ryan, Sue Sponge and special guests. Memwah is Howie Klein’s printed and photographed recollections of his life well-lived. Tasked with finishing a book upon his death in December 2025, award-winning columnist Denise Sullivan has gathered a cast of friends from his San Francisco years at KSAN, KUSF and 415 Records, to read the ’70s and ’80s portions of Klein’s memoir aloud, speak to the causes he cared about, and spin the records he loved. From the tenements of New York and its downtown psychedelic scene, on the hippie trail through Afghanistan and India, to a vegan kitchen in Amsterdam, by the mid-’70s, Klein found himself at Harvey Milk’s camera store on Castro Street, and at the center of San Francisco’s mid-’70s social, political and musical scenes. Working…
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Join us in celebrating Avotcja’s 85th birthday! Poet, Musicologist, Disc Jockey, Small Percussionist, Prose Writer in Many Genres, Culture Hero! Avotcja’s award-winning group Modúpue (Gratitude) is an ensemble that stretches to as many players as well fit a venue Tonight, Modúpue is: Avotcja, poetry and small multi-percussion. Sandi Poindexter, violin. Jon Jang, piano. Francis Wong, saxophone and flute. Heshima Mark Williams, bass. Raul Ramirez, multi-percussion. The cover charge for the sextet tonight is $25-35 sliding scale, cash or venmo, payable at the door / byob. College and high school students – $10. Grade school and younger, free. No one turned away for lack of funds. Wheelchair accessible. Avotcja was named “Jazz Hero” by the West Coast Chapter of the Jazz Journalists Association in 2015 and was in the same year awarded the JaZzline Institute BAJABA Lifetime Achievement Award and the PEN Oakland Lifetime Achievement Award. She has also been the…
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Kasey Knudsen, saxophone. Harvey Wainapel, saxophone. John Wiitala, bass. Jon Arkin, drums. $20 cover charge (cash at the door, please); byob. Students $10; kids free. For reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 Kasey Knudsen and Harvey Wainapel, highly accomplished saxophonists acclaimed for their work in diverse genres and their mastery of the full range of wind instruments, join forces across generations in this new quartet setting with equally talented and experienced colleagues, bassist John Wiitala and drummer Jon Arkin, to perform a thoughtfully selected repertoire that works well in a “chordless” setting, without piano or guitar — music that’s at once accessible and fascinating in its complexity. These four jazz musicians have long been mutual admirers and frequent collaborators while traveling individual paths in their careers. They’ve developed a unique quartet that they’re excited to bring to Bird & Beckett in its public debut. Harvey Wainapel, the senior partner…
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Eli Yamin, piano & vocal. Roberta Donnay, vocal. Simon Planting, bass. Sylvia Cuenca, drums. $20 cover charge at the door, cash please! And bring your own beverage; we have cups, openers, etc. Student cover charge is $10. Kids free. Eli Yamin (widely known as “Dr. E”) is out from New York City to play blues, bebop and swing — topical original songs mixed with classics by Thelonious Monk, Elizabeth Cotten, and Willie Dixon. A very bluesy jazz pianist and cultural ambassador, Dr. E’s joyful style has taken him from performances with Mercedes Ellington, Illinois Jacquet and Walter Perkins to four appearances with his own band at the White House for the Obamas and ten global tours for the U.S. Department of State. His work embraces jazz as a tool for community building and social justice built on the idea that “the blues is the roots, everything else is the fruits.”…
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David Oppenheimer is a clinical professor of law at Berkeley Law, director of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law and faculty co-director of the pro bono program. He is the author of ten books on civil rights and discrimination law, including the first law school casebook in comparative equality law. The Diversity Principle (Yale University Press, 2026), the work of a diversity skeptic turned admirer, chronicles how diversity became a foundational value of higher education over the last two hundred years, how it evolved as it was adopted in commerce and science, and the implications of the current backlash. The diversity principle–the idea that people with different backgrounds, experiences, identities, and viewpoints produce better work by engaging with one another–was a core tenet of the first modern research university, founded in Germany in 1810. It was the inspiration for John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, a touchstone of academic freedom; a hallmark of Charles Eliot’s remaking of…
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Make Bird & Beckett a habit Sundays at 5pm! Stay for a tune, stay for two sets — whatever suits your Sunday! Just byob and a friend or two and have a nice time in the neighborhood. Contribute what you can to the kitty so we can pay these fine musicians, but don’t stress. Our donors have your back. Become one yourself, if you’re flush. It’s good for you, and it’s good for the culture! This week, Peck Allmond comes back for visit. Born in Rochester, NY, Peck was raised in Berkeley, a 1980 graduate of the storied Berkeley High jazz program that gave the jazz world the likes of David Murray, Will Bernard, Craig Handy, Benny Green, Peter Apfelbaum, Joshua Redman. Now, he’s a New York guy who’s performed with Oliver Lake, Meshell NdegeOcello, Peter Apfelbaum, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Joe Lovano, James Carter, Jimmy Smith, Benny Green, Richie…
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Kristen Strom, saxophone Jhoely Garay, guitar Scott Sorkin, guitar Nick Panoutsos, bass Jim Kassis, drums $25 cover charge at the door (cash, please!) / byob. Students $10. Kids free. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Kristen Strom and Scott Sorkin are a musical couple who are two of the Bay Area’s most in-demand musicians. For this show at Bird & Beckett they will explore their love of Brazilian music with special guest, guitarist Jhoely Garay. Garay is a New York-based guitarist, composer, arranger, and educator from Mexico City, whose music expresses her passion for straight-ahead swing, contemporary jazz, and melodies and rhythms from Latin America. The rhythm section is completed with NYC-based bassist Nick Panoutsos and drummer Jim Kassis. Jhoely Garay has become an integral part of the dynamic jazz scene in New York and Mexico, collaborating with iconic artists such as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Steve Wilson, Darcy…
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Scott Foster & Myles Boisen,guitars. Lisa Mezzacappa, bass. Jon Arkin, drums. $20 cover charge (cash, please) / byob. Students $10. Kids free. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. The Mad Explorations Of Scott Foster & Myles Boisen swinging their axes through tangled thickets. Holy Les Paul, Batman! two guitarists tinker with tunes not written for the guitar!
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All welcome! Meet your neighbors! Get involved in your neighborhood! Join the GPA if you’re not already a member. Annual dues still just $10. Sign up for the GPA newsletter here: https://www.glenparkassociation.org/
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Since the McCarthy era theatre text have consistently expunged any mention of important contributions from the Left to the American Theatre. Professor Joel Eis, author of five previous books on theater and politics and a radical theatre practitioner in the 1960s, has unearthed and compiled the story of this sixty-year movement. From the first use of agitprop in the Yiddish theatre in 1887 to the first true theatre-in-the-round in Harlem in 1938, this movement produced the most important plays, playwrights and theater styles for the first half of the twentieth century. Free event, presented in person and live streamed. (A caveat for those viewing in the stream: the visuals presented with the talk in the shop will not necessarily be well served by the live stream. Come to the show if you possibly can!) Visit the Laborfest website for more information on the month’s schedule of events.
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Freddie Bryant – guitar/voice. Sylvia Cuenca – drums. Doug Miller – bass. Cover charge – $20; byob. Students – $10. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Freddie’s Kaleidoscope West Trio presents Poems, Groove and Song: a special program curated for Bird and Beckett’s intimate space. The music is based on a kaleidoscope of influences from straight-ahead to blues, New Orleans grooves to Brazilian, Latin and world rhythms with songs from his recent album SOLO BOSSA, his acclaimed song cycle UPPER WEST SIDE LOVE STORY and LIVE GROOVES…EPIC TALES. Freddie received a master’s degree in classical guitar from Yale School of Music and is in demand in the New York jazz and Brazilian scenes where he has worked with Eliane Elias, Tom Harrell and many others. He was a member of Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet and has played with the Mingus Orchestra for two decades. His impressive array…
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Sundays at 5pm is our happy hour slot every week. Stay for a tune, stay for two sets. Come when you like and leave when you like, and pay what makes sense to you. Bring something to sip if you like — but we have Hetch Hetchy’s finest reservoir tapped, if it’s water you’re craving. That’s on us! If you want to bring comestibles to share with your fellow revelers, we’ll set up a table to accommodate that! The second Sunday of every month at 5pm, it’s our “Americana” slot, and today we’re pleased to present honky tonk, twang, classic and outlaw country music from showman, singer and guitar virtuoso Mitch Polzak with the duo he calls his Royal Deuces. You can catch Mitch & the Royal Deuces in rowdy bars throughout the American West and abroad as well. He’s big in Spain, we can tell you that! He’s recorded…
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Takezo Takeda, guitar and vocals. Chris Burns, piano. Karl Severeid, bass. Paul Revelli, drums. $20 cover charge / byob — cash at the door, please! Students $10. Reservations welcome. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. From Shinjuku to San Francisco, it’s an electric blues bonanza!
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Eric Shifrin, piano and vocals. Raul Ramirez, drumset & percussion. Heath Proskin, bass. $20 cover charge (cash at the doors, please). Students, $10. Kids free. For a reservation, call the bookshop at 415-586-3733. Eric Shifrin has been wowing the swells and the swindlers in San Francisco for decades, from the commonest saloon to the most pretentious salon, in the bars and the ballrooms, anywhere folks gather to remind themselves what it is to be in with the in crowd! Tonight, Eric’s In Crowd comprises the great percussionist Raul Ramirez, from the Peruvian port city of Callao, and the unflappable bassist Heath Proskin, assaying a batch of tunes with a tropical lilt. Eric himself hails from Malibu, spent memorable years in Hawaii while still an alto player, and honed his chops on piano in Japan. The trade winds brought him here with his wife Kotomi some years ago, and we’re…
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