This is where it all begins! Where the future comes into view afresh with every sunrise! Sunnyside Elementary School’s brilliant young students produce “The Ray” once a year — their own literary journal! They’re coming to Bird & Beckett this Sunday, from 2-3pm, to deliver the word! Turn out to hear them and to let them know we value their talents, energy and insights. Culture starts anew every day, building on long traditions! Great writing and art make for a great future! Thanks to a grant from the Glen Park Association for the 2023 publication of The Ray, the good folks at Sunnyside School are helping their students showcase their artwork and spoken word in local community spaces for all to enjoy.

David Hardiman, Jr., trumpet Charles Hamilton, trombone Hal Richards, tenor sax Cory Wright, baritone sax Karl Evangelista, guitar David Parker, bass Valentino Peeps, drums Come out for the late set at the Bird & the Beckett to get a taste of a deep and moody and slammin’ septet led by bassist David Parker and featuring six more top flight local players. $20-30 sliding scale (cash please), byob. David loves the classic jazz composers and loves rhythm and the blues, the bass, the bari and the ‘bone. His arrangements delve deep into that low register for a rhythm-forward swing through classic compositions by jazz giants Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Horace Silver, Eric Dolphy and J. S. Bach. Way back at the turn of the century, when Bird & Beckett was just getting into swing on Diamond Street (where Manzoni now cooks up delicious Northern Italian…

Erik Jekabson, trumpet/flugelhorn Sheldon Brown, saxophones/flutes Murray Low, piano Fred Randolph, bass/compositions Isaac Schwartz, drums $20-25 is suggested for quintets (cash or venmo, please), but no one is turned away for lack of funds. Pay what you can at our Friday evening jazz happy hours! Byob if you think you’re going to get thirsty! Fred Randolph brings his fiery quintet to Bird & Beckett for an afternoon of all original music with jazz, funk, latin, and world music influences.  Of the band’s June 2020 cd “Mood Walk,” filled with Fred Randolph originals, JW Vibe calls it a “Stylistically eclectic, supremely grooving, endlessly fascinating masterwork…a rambunctious, twist, turn and improvisation-filled set.” Tune in particularly at about the 3:10 mark in the video below to get a taste of saxophonist Sheldon Brown and trumpeter Erik Jekabson, two core members of tonight’s ensemble, featured on Fred’s “Mood Walk” cd. And play the whole…

Sheldon Brown – Alto Saxophone, Bass Clarinet Ben Goldberg – Bb and Bass Clarinets John Wiitala – Bass Tim Bulkley – Drums $20 cash cover charge; byob. Reservations, call 415-586-3733 Sheldon writes: Ben and I have been playing together for longer than he or I can remember. We’ve played together with Clarinet Thing, with Darren Johnston’s groups, Graham Connah’s various ensembles, etc., etc., but one of our favorite settings is playing in the “chord-less quartet” format. We started doing that many years ago with an original music project called “Papa’s Midnight Hop” (after the Steve Lacy tune), and after that project ended we kept working in the quartet format doing music of Herbie Nichols and Thelonious Monk. For this show the focus will be on our own music, with a healthy dose of Nichols/Monk. Joining us will be two of my favorite musicians, the extraordinary bassist John Wiitala and superlative…

Ashia Ajani’s position as poet-in-residence at the San Francisco Museum of the African Diaspora was announced just days ago, and her poetry debut Heirloom is newly published by Write Bloody Publishing. Speaking from both a place of restoration and vengeance, Heirloom explores concepts of spiritual nourishment, physical and emotional sacrifice, environmental injustice, sexuality, waste colonialism, abolition, and Black migration; these poems seek to address the trauma felt from environmental injustice and the familial wounds that are passed down as a result of historical neglect. A descendant of W.E.B DuBois’s concept of “sorrow songs,” Heirloom analyzes our environmental pasts and presents in order to inform our environmental future. Through bird song, jazz, symbiosis, land loss, insect interactions, travel, desire and a whole lot of love and reverence for the unspoken, Heirloom reveals the ingrained connections between Blackness and ecological survival. Ashia is an Oakland resident, a Black storyteller and an environmental…

The intensity of individual, mob and institutional attacks on working journalists and their media outlets is unmistakable in our current age. World Press Freedom Day pushes back. So, too, does the work of many thousands of individuals locally and worldwide who take the tools of journalism in hand to accurately report the news they encounter in their day-to-day lives in order to responsibly and effectively inform their communities on issues of immense immediate importance. After the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, the city of Portland, Oregon – one of the whitest towns in America – erupted in 200 days and nights of protest in support of the Black Lives Matter movement against racism and police violence. In the same moment, activists and observers – including everyday people who started out simply pointing their phones at the rapidly escalating police violence – launched a…

Join your friends from Bird & Beckett this Sunday, April 30th at Keys Jazz Bistro–Broadway at Kearny in North Beach–for a five-hour cavalcade of great San Francisco jazz musicians coming together in the Independent Musicians Alliance to build labor solidarity and jamming to fill the coffers of the IMA’s “Musicians Assistance Fund.” The IMA, born a scant year ago and growing like Topsy through grit, hard work and determination, is giving the City’s freelance musicians a collective voice, while the Fund is easing its members’ manifold economic stresses by making grants to members for rehearsals, gig cancellations, instrument repair, storage, cartage, travel and parking, and quite a lot more. Bird & Beckett and Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Mario Guarneri came together to stake the IMA to $8k to get the fund rolling and $5k+ has been given out in the past six months. This Sunday, we want to raise $5k…

Drummer Tony Johnson’s 230 Jones Street Band kicks off the weekend at 5:30pm Friday the 28th, with Bob Kenmotsu, saxophone; Si Perkoff, piano; and Chuck Bennett, long-time veterans of the San Francisco and New York jazz scenes. $20 donation appreciated, byob. Find your happy hour at Bird & Beckett every Friday right up to 8pm, then grab a taco at La Corneta or a beer at Glen Park Station and return at 9pm for the late set. Friday, 9-10:30pm: “Those who drink the water must remember those who dug the well.” Guitarist and LifeForce Jazz Recording Artist and Producer Brother Khalil Abdullah returns to Bird & Beckett for a night of gratitude and remembrance; a night of celebrating and honoring the roots of this beautiful music called jazz. Br Khalil is joined by an incredible band featuring Murray Low on piano, Mark Heshima Williams on bass, and Deszon Claiborne on…

Amoranalysis is literary deconstruction for the purpose of interpreting and emanating Amor. So says Ben Bac Sierra… novelist, CCSF writing teacher, lowrider, San Francisco native… He continues, We do not know what life is or where or when it begins or ends, nor do we know what death is or where or when it begins or ends. We have no idea of time. All we know are moments upon moments, and we do not even know that. We fantasize about words and meaning, while it is all vanishing in front of us. Life. Death. I don’t understand those things, and, ultimately, I don’t care about those things. I know Now, even though I don’t know Now. I am here, and the best of all of this right Now is in Amor. A state of being, a miracle, that puts you in the moment forever, which is only the specific moment.…

Enjoy a classic jazz trio, led by drummer Vince Lateano–a key player on the San Francisco jazz scene since the mid-1960s. Veteran bassist Peter Barshay and the fine young pianist Ben Stolorow join Vince on the third Sunday evening of every month for a deep and pleasurable swing through jazz standards, bop, blues and bossa. Nothing gives us more pleasure than this trio. Byob and fifteen bucks for the band! No reservations needed. Support live jazz & its finest practitioners in a real bookshop!

Sam Cady, piano Charlie McCarthy, saxophone Chuck Bennett, bass Mark Lee, drums Sam Cady’s a fine piano player, writer and arranger, a puckish, thoughtful philosopher & buddhist and a pleasure to hear, and he’s in great company with these fine musicians, all familiar and well appreciated from the many times they’ve crossed the Bird & Beckett bandstand. We all miss Mary, very much so, but we have a treasure in Sam. Come out for a late taste of jazz. 9pm start! Bring a twenty for the band and something to wet your whistle.

Craig Handy, saxophone Peter Horvath, piano Essiet Okon Essiet, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums $20 cash cover charge collected at the door. For a reservation, call 415-586-3733. Reservations are honored until showtime. BYOB if you want to have something to sip. By all rights, jazz is the people’s music. A sliding scale if needed is available upon request, and, on request, reduced admission is $10 once the second set starts and $5 after 9pm. No economic, imperative? $20 for one tune or the whole evening. Syl demonstrates the invaluable nature of an underfunded art. San Jose native and New York-based Sylvia Cuenca is a key player in the San Francisco Bay Area jazz world, and her ability to draw fantastic talents into Bird & Beckett and other local clubs makes this a dynamic and exciting crossroads where you’ll hear one of America’s proudest cultural traditions, the varied musical strains that make…

Catch a key player in the Bay Area’s Latin Jazz scene in a return to Bird & Beckett with his quintet! Marco Díaz – piano , trumpet Charlie Gurke – saxes Julio Pérez – percussion Ahkeel Mestayer – percussion Saul Sierra- bass ~~~ BYOB and $25 for the quintet, and enjoy live music at Bird & Beckett! ~~~  

Johnny Lonely has a repertoire of originals, standards, and songs improvised off audience suggestions that paint a picture both tragic and hilarious. Johnny (a figment of Brian Lohmann’s tragi-comic imagination) and accompanist Joshua Raoul Brody (a Bird & Beckett regular, known for his work in the Rick & Ruby Show, The Residents and so much more) have collaborated for decades, co-founding BATS Improv and Pulp Playhouse, doing opera in Carnegie Hall with Overtone Theater, regaling tourists in a Las Vegas casino, and touring Europe. Tonight, they’re joined by Andrew Higgins on bass and Ed McClary on drums. This is your chance to host Johnny and his pals in your living room away from your living room, the sweet li’l bookshop in Glen Park that morphs into a comfy music lounge with shocking regularity. $20 cash cover charge for this quartet date.  BYOB, lol. Reservations: 415-586-3733 Regarding Johnny Lonely’s plaintive talent,…

Piano professor & all around good time guy Eric Shifrin has been calling the in crowd to assembly all over this town for decades — in bars and boites, saloons and salons, dives, diners and, as it turns out, the deep piney woods of Santa Cruz. If you come out to Glen Park tonight, you’re sure of a big surprise! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIeyEnOH2hs Eric & the In Crowd entertain the Bird & Beckett regulars every 2nd Friday, 5:30-8:00pm. Now, them’s some happy hours and more! Eric Shifrin, piano Gino Raugi, guitar Dan Seamans, bass Mike Strunk, drums The halcyon days of Santa Cruz in the ’70s, revisited by a wonderful aggregation of long-time friends & bandstand colleagues, plus some special guests. And you! At Bird & Beckett you’re always in with the in crowd! Remember, you’ll never go wrong on Fridays if you byob and a twenty for the band. In any…

Renowned guitarist Paul Mehling is in with the In Crowd tonight, along with Dexter Williams on bass! A return engagement! ~~~ BYOB and a twenty for the trio, and enjoy live music at Bird & Beckett! ~~~ Enjoy this video from last August, and make plans to spend a 2.5 hour happy hour at Bird & Beckett the 2nd Sunday of every month with Eric & the In Crowd.

  Who doesn’t know “Time Has Come Today,” the massive hit single by The Chambers Brothers that made the charts in the fall of 1968? Co-written by Lester’s brothers Willie and Joe Chambers, it’s seared into the collective memory of the nation and the world, busting out as it did in the turmoil of the Vietnam era and having been in well over 100 movies and commercials over the years The scandal that Lester never received a dime in royalties from 1967 to 1994 will be part of the tale that he and his co-writer Tee Watts will share with you at Bird & Beckett. It is also a celebration of Lester’s 83rd birthday and he is cutting the price of the book for this event from $30 to $20 as his gift to the public. Masks mandatory (we have one to give you) when Lester is in the room.…

Before Kim Shuck was the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco, she was an open mic host and she just can’t shake the habit. On the 2nd Monday of every month Shuck invites two poets to feature longer readings of their work before a no-intros/one-poem-per-reader open mic. On the 4th Monday the rules are the same but it’s all open mic. Find the zoom link below and join us with your favorite poem. This month, the featured poets are Heather Bourbeau and Vince Montague. Heather Bourbeau’s poetry and fiction have appeared in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review, Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and SWWIM. She has written in Madagascar, read in Tunisia, and worked in Liberia. While drinking strong tea, she wonders where she will explore next. Her collection Some Days The Bird is a poetry conversation with the Irish-Australian poet Anne Casey (Beltway Editions,…

Wednesday, April 19th at 7:30pm, tune in to our live stream to catch Walker Brents III’s monthy talk., this time out on the American Magus Otherwise Known As Harry Smith. The historian of unspeakableness. The cartographer of the ungraspable. The anthologist of the collection of songs that inspired the 20th century left wing poetic archetype. The scribe of our mysterious comprehension of the unknowable momentary perception. The one we know ourselves to be, uniquely particular, observent and elegant. The one upon whom nothing is lost. The one whose work we are, always. Whoever that is, consider this as that… Walker Brents III has been elucidating topics of a diverse nature on a near-monthly basis at Bird & Beckett for two decades. There are good, though in a sense unfathomable reasons that you should tune in! Find out for yourself by doing so, and consider also becoming a donor to Bird…

Remembering Marty Williams, and exploring the future. With Ruth Davies on bass and Jack Dorsey on drums, and the great Kristen Strom playing saxophones, guitarist Eric Swinderman leads a brilliant quartet through two sets of originals and standards. byob and a twenty to help us pay the quartet! These musicians appear regularly in the Friday night jazz series at Cafe Society in Half Moon Bay, where the quartet was led for years by Marty Williams, a veteran, much loved jazz pianist who recently passed away. Here’s a little video. Drive down to HMB some Friday to get a taste of that, and come to Bird & Beckett this Saturday to hear them in exquisite detail without the hiss of the espresso machine! Byob and a twenty for the band. For reservations, call 415-586-3733.

Come out for the late set at Bird & Beckett, Fridays from 9-10:30pm! Bassist Dewayne Oakley and guitarist Ralph Nelson return for a gorgeous romp through their rich repertoire of blues, soul, calypso and jazz. BYOB and a twenty for the band! Reservations, call 415-586-3733 The blues speak to all of us, and we’ll let the Dewayne Oakley Blues Ensemble speak for itself. Enjoy the video below, and come to the show! There’s nothing like being in the room with the musicians and their music!     Here’s video from their March 27 late show at Bird & Beckett (the show starts at the 7:55 mark in this video):

This evening, saxophonist Sebastian Pinillos brings The Odiaga Project, a quartet performing Afro-Peruvian folk music arranged in a jazz setting, incorporating native Peruvian instruments. Sebastian Pinillos – Saxophone, composer Junhong Jung – Guitar Pedro Rosales – Cajón Kevin Silveida – Bass Born in Lima, Peru but raised in the northern city of Trujillo, Sebastian Pinillos took up the tenor sax at age 12, the flute at 18 and the clarinet at 21, and has been performing professionally since 2012. From the Bahamas to Peru to New York, he has had the opportunity to play with world class artists in genres from reggae to jazz to Afro-Peruvian music. Between 2018 and 2021, Sebastian lived in South Florida and spent time fostering his community by working with nonprofits focused on providing music education to low-income schools. In 2021, he moved to the Bay Area to spend a year at the San Francisco…

Bill Ortiz, trumpet & flugelhorn Howard Wiley, saxes Matt Clark, piano Marcus Shelby, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums Major league trumpet player Bill Ortiz brings an all-star quintet to Bird & Beckett tonight! A San Francisco native, Bill took up the trumpet at age 10. Before long, he held the first trumpet chair in the San Francisco All-City Band, and by his mid-teens he was playing at local dances and clubs with a number of R&B and jazz groups, making for an early and varied start to his professional career. His horizons were broadened further during his college years with his study and participation in electronic and Latin music. After high school, he joined the highly acclaimed Orchestra Batachanga, a young Afro Cuban group under the direction of percussionist/musicologist John Santos, leading to important tenures with Pete Escovedo, John Santos’ Machete Ensemble, and other leading latin bands in the Bay Area…

Been dwelling on North Beach and all it means to San Francisco culcha? Been thinking Phyllis Diller & Lenny Bruce, the Purple Onion, the Hungry i, Mort Sahl, the Jazz Workshop, Enrico Balducci, the Cellar & the Co-Existence Bagel Shop, Mabuhay Gardens, Dirk Dirksen, dozens of punk bands you never heard of? Phyllis Diller? Lenny Bruce? Did we say Claire Hawkins? Alan Harris? Get to Bird & Beckett for the poets Thursday 4/6 at 7! Blabbermouth open mic at 8! You’re in for a wild ride.  

Harvey Wainapel, saxes Adam Shulman, piano Doug Miller, bass Bryan Bowman, drums The last time Harvey Wainapel played Bird & Beckett, it was mid-summer 2019. A lot of water under the bridge since then–a lot of loss and tears, and lately much falling from that river in the sky. Now’s the time for Harvey’s joyful reemergence before live audiences. Tonight, Harvey returns to Bird & Beckett with a terrific quartet. A great master of the reeds with a special place in the Bay Area pantheon of jazz musicians, Harvey promises his trademark mix of originals, fresh arrangements of standards and songs that ought to be standards, plus some Brazilian spice. Welcome back, Harvey! ~~~ BYOB and a twenty for the quartet, and enjoy live music at Bird & Beckett! ~~~ Harvey has toured internationally with Ray Charles, Joe Lovano, and Airto Moreira/Flora Purim. Japan’s JazzLife calls him “a musician with…

You are cordially invited to  enjoy a generous sampling from the Matthew Perifano songbook this San Francisco early spring late Sunday afternoon, as Matthew delves into new material and old, with Amyellen Kessler and Joshua Raoul Brody providing sweet harmonies and, from JRB, nimble keyboard support. You’ll hear quirky undergrad college songs to collaborations with Shakespeare to a camp song that possibly saved the lives of dozens upon dozens of banana slugs to subsequent compositions that attempt to come up with an answer to what’s it all about?!! Yes! it’s all here in sixty (or so) tuneful minutes for your listening pleasure. Do please byob and a twenty to help us pay the musicians!

Are you experienced? Charles Unger represents a half century of jazz in San Francisco, and has been our ambassador to the world for decades. E “Doc” Smith, writing in 2014, noted that in just the three prior years, “Charles Unger Experience has performed in Sweden at the Gothenburg Cultural Festival, in BÃ¥stad and at the Kristianstad/Ã…hus Jazz Festival. He has also performed with the Swedish group Wavemakers in the musical ‘A Dream of a Better Life’ at multiple locations. During the summer of 2011, Unger toured Europe for the first time since 2005, and performed in Sweden, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris and in the South of France.” Local audiences and visitors to our city from the world over know him well from 2-1/2 decades of weekly and twice-weekly bookings at the only recently defunct Les Joulins Bistro across from the iconic John’s Grill on Ellis. Sam Spade territory…  Unlike the Maltese…

Luxurious guitar and exotica. Cool swing and soul with a hot trio. That’s Jinx’s jazz bag! Long-time Bird & Beckett fans know that bag well, though most beyond our cozy niche know him only for his rockabilly twang and train songs, whether wafting out the swinging doors of the Saloon across from Caffe Trieste or ringing loud from the stage of the annual Glen Park Festival. You can nudge Jinx that way for a minute if you want to try, he’s a reasonable man. But his true compass points to the jazz north star tonight, and a star he is in that glistening firmament. It’s jazz and Swedish pastry you’ll get from Jinx and his trio tonight! Welcome a true and capable apostle of the many towering gods of the jazz guitar traditions, from Freddie Green to Charlie Christian to Tal Farlow to Wes Montgomery to Barney Kessel to Joe…

Catch the Jinx Jones Jazz Trio at the Friday Happy Hour show, 5:30 to 8pm on Friday the 31st — and pick up a copy of his first jazz trio cd, magnificently recorded live at Bird & Beckett back when the thing was abornin’! Then scoot over to La Corneta to grab a taco and get back to the shop by 9pm for the Charles Unger Experience! ~~~ BYOB and a twenty for the band, and enjoy live music at Bird & Beckett! ~~~ On Saturday, April Fool’s Day, at 7:30pm, you’ll hear the reed player & puppet master Harvey Wainapel’s quartet with Adam Shulman on piano, Doug Miller on bass and Bryan Bowman on drums playing Harvey’s originals and fresh arrangements of standards and songs that ought to be standards, plus some Brazilian spice! And Sunday, April 2nd at 5pm, stop foolin’ around and close out your weekend with…