Bird & Beckett is pleased to welcome Kahil and the Ensemble back for its third annual appearance on our stage! And that’s not counting the date when Kahil brought saxophone titan David Murray in for a duo date back in 2017! The EHE is on tour in support of the documentary film “Be Known.” View a clip from the film here! https://vimeopro.com/user1790076/be-known The story of life on the road for El’Zabar and the EHE is vividly depicted in the film. Their tours are rigorous and Kahil’s personal life is complicated, yet his unique genius shines through. Narrated by the filmmaker Dwayne Johnson-Cochran, “Be Known” is a raw look at music at its creation. Executive Producers Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance.

Rob Reich – piano; Andrew Stephens – trumpet; Ben Goldberg – clarinet; Ollie Dudek – bass; Eric Garland – drums. Brand new cd! This is a fabulous band that plays for swing dancers from its own unique bag… well worth listening to in Bird & Beckett’s cozy concert setting to catch the extraordinary talent that makes it work so well. But you’re welcome to claim a few square feet between the bookcases to dance if you’re determined to do so. We’d be delighted. Regardless, you’ll be delighted with what you hear! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6-kTKPWYrQ The music is rooted in the classic swing era of the late 1930s. Featuring classic arrangements of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Artie Shaw, “Swings Left” branches off from there and also features Reich’s original music in the style, combining a hot rhythm with a cool sensibility. $10-20 suggested donation; $5-10 suggested for students, musicians, limited…

Grant Levin, piano; Chris Amberger, bass; Jeff Minnieweather, drums. Like a fine Teddy Wilson trio record, this afternoon will delight you. Guaranteed!

Attar, “the perfumer,” allegorist of the heart in its many voices and guises as it wanders its way toward the deep truth. The inspirational abundance of this timeless poet transvalues all notions of genre, imparting strength and grace to contemporary free verse as well as encompassing the spiritual quest-theme with a thousand intuitive patterns! Walker Brents III delves into topics poetic, philosophical and mythological once a month at Bird & Beckett, save the summer months, on the last Sunday of each month.

$20 cover charge; $10 for students, musicians, limited income Ritmojito features vocalist Sandra Aran, with Richard Nelson Hall on piano, Dean Muench on bass and Dan Foltz, drums. Superbly crafted songs with deep latin jazz grooves, salsa to ska to samba. This date is subsidized by Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund, augmenting your donations and our commitment, so that the musicians can earn $150 each for the gig! Please come with cash for the cover charge.

Talk about your San Francisco jazz… On the fourth Friday of each month, our weekly jazz in the bookshop series features The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band — aka The Chuck Peterson Quintet — five musicians whose history on the local jazz scene dates back 60 years, to the very early 1950s. Read more here.

$10-20 suggested donation; $5-10 for students, musicians, limited income Two Car Funeral is an Americana band showcasing the solo voice, acoustic guitar and harmonica of West-Virginia-born baritone Stephen Yerkey. Yerkey writes and sings of railroad workers, robber barons, short pants, love and despair, Algiers and lighthouse keeping. Two Car Funeral fuses country, jazz, folk and blues, and rich storytelling. Yerkey, who writes most of the band’s material, and Lance Campbell, the band’s drummer, both came to San Francisco from Kentucky and played in the same band, Nonfiction, in California from 1977 to 1987. After talking for the last several years about having another band, they formed Two Car Funeral, with Joe Gore on guitar and Scott Leftridge on bass. Yerkey has been on NPR, has toured a bit in the States and Europe, and has issued three albums since his days in Nonfiction, which issued an albumin 1986. Joe Gore…

The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents… Karl Evangelista, guitar Jason Hoopes, bass Scott Amendola, drums $20 cover charge; $10 for students, musicians, low income “If Scott Amendola didn’t exist, the San Francisco music scene would have to invent him.” – Derk Richardson, San Francisco Bay Guardian Scott Amendola is a gleefully funny guy, and a brilliant musician to boot. He engages everyone he meets, musically and in yr average neighborhood bookstore. We’re glad he’s coming, in such company! Do come! In some circles, Amendola is best known for his intermittent two-decade collaborationwith seven-string guitar wizard Charlie Hunter, with whom he connected shortly aftermoving to the Bay Area in 1992. They went on to play together with John Schott and Will Bernard in the three-guitar-and-drums combo T.J. Kirk, which earned a Grammynomination for its eponymous 1996 debut album. After years of occasional gigs, theyteamed up again in 2011 in a tough and…

Scott Foster leads a quintet featuring the handsome Henry Hung on trumpet, mighty Joe Cohen on tenor sax, thumpin’ Aaron Cohn, a player of filigree & facility, on bass, and slammin’ Mike Quigg on drums. This is an homage to Jimmy Ryan’s Bird & Beckett Bebop Band! Some bebop, some Monk, some jazz standards! With Mike sitting in Jimmy’s chair, the band is made up of players that put in fertile years with Jimmy here at the bookshop!

$10-20 suggested donation; $5 suggested for students / musicians / modest means The Nashville Honeymoon Edition Lynne Maes, vocalsHank Maninger, vocals & guitarJoe Goldmark, pedal steelTim Wagar, bassKenny Owen, drums From Highway 99 down through Bakersfield , to the turnpikes of Pennsylvania, to the streets of Baltimore — this country music is at home in the jukebox of any honky tonk you call home.

Beth Schenck – alto sax, compositions Kasey Knudsen – alto sax Phillip Greenlief – tenor sax Cory Wright – tenor and baritone saxes Social Stutter, a saxophone quartet led by composer/altoist Beth Schenck, blurs the line between strictly written chamber music and soaring free jazz. Solos emerge from the natural order of intricately written lines that, although begin simply in structure, twist and distort themselves into surprisingly complex shapes and forms. Unlike traditional saxophone quartets, some of the pieces are composed for two altos and two tenors, which leads itself to denser harmonic territory and a uniquely homogenous sound. Masters of texture and nuance, the quartet has a keen awareness of how to support and push one another’s creative boundaries. Social Stutter is comprised of some of the Bay Area’s most unique voices: Kasey Knudsen, Phillip Greenlief, Cory Wright and Beth Schenck. Beth Schenck is a San Francisco based saxophonist,…

“Seinfeld meets Sedaris in the Snapchat Age.” – Jill Dearman, LAMBDA-winning author of The Great Bravura. From the Erie Gay News (EGN): The Art of the Anecdote. After the success of his first novel 85A, Kyle Thomas Smith found a new register in his literary voice while exploring and experimenting with dynamic innovations in short fiction, the personal essay, and the bourgeoning flash fiction genres. The resulting collection of vignettes, flash scenes and essays is Smith’s Cockloft: Scenes from a Gay Marriage [September 17, 2018; Gatekeeper Press]. Like the small attic it’s named after, Cockloft is full of surprises. Whether they’re fending off an invading squirrel, letting an errant call girl know they’re not her kind of johns, or enduring a #MeToo moment with a handsy waiter on their Roman honeymoon, Kyle and his husband Julius are just the kind of gay married couple who didn’t see the 2016 election coming.…

Grant Levin, piano James Mahone, saxophone Aaron Cohn, bass Hamir Atwal, drums Four top San Francisco jazz musicians weave their magic for an avid audience. $20 cover charge; $10 for students, musicians, limited income