$20 cover charge; $10 for students, musicians, low income. Mean to Me resurrects classic jazz of the 1920s through ’40s filtered through the unique sensibilities of the band, which boasts a proclivity for bop, soul and latin jazz as well. Think Monk sauntering up Tin Pan Alley and turning onto Bourbon Street… Sweet and low down, and always swingin’. Mingus is there… Ahmad Jamal, too… Mean to Me’s core comprises Judy Butterfield, trained as a cabaret singer but with an abiding love for soul music; Ben Slater, a pianist whose interest in exploring the roots of jazz grew from time spent living in New Orleans; and Dave Shaff, a trumpeter drawn to some more modern and funky sounds. All three grew up in San Francisco and have played together on and off for ten years now. They know how to have a good time, and so do their confederates: Scott…

$10-20 suggested donation. $5 for students / musicians / low income Rob Reich, piano; Ben Goldberg, clarinet; Andrew Stephens, trumpet; Ollie Dudek, bass; Eric Garland, drums. Rooted in the classic swing music of the late 1930s, Swings Left plays tunes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Artie Shaw, as well as many of Rob’s original tunes in this style, combining hot rhythms with a cool sensibility.

$10-20 suggested donation; $5-10 for students, musicians, low income. Singer Darlene Langston is featured with the band, with Noel Weidcamp on cornet, John Hunt on trombone, Don Neely on clarinet, soprano sax and alto sax, Si Perkoff on piano, Duncan James on guitar, Al Obidinski on bass and Greg Gotelli on drums. The BVJB evokes the hot era of Chicago jazz in the 1920s and ’30s, when a bunch of white kids who called themselves the Austin High Gang were riding high, creating hot jazz that took its own crazy trajectory from the music of New Orleans. And it takes the music to New York, where guitarist Eddie Condon opened a club in 1945 that favored this music and the talents of Chicagoans and allied musicians like pianist Ralph Sutton, clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, trumpeters Wingy Manone and Max Kaminsky, organist Wild Bill Davison and countless others. Though the root music…

Walker’s back from his summer rambles. Come out to hear some of what he’s been ruminating about out there on the road! Walt Whitman, the good grey poet, saeth Walker, “is evermore my guide as I now grow grey. The literary field of action is one of perception and notation, especially related to journeys and rambles [there’s that word!], as well as memories and archetypal landscapes and characters.” And a quote from ol’ Walt himself: “I am fain to fancy the foundation of quite a lesson learned…Literature flies so high and is so hotly spiced, that our notes may seem breaths of common air, or draughts of water to drink. But that is part of our lesson.”

Start your weekend out at Bird & Beckett Friday evening with the relaxed bop & swing of the 230 Jones Street Band, then grab a taco and come back for the late show, when Beth Custer and Stephen Kent’s Trance Mission deploys clarinets, didgeridoo and percussion to take you there… Saturday morning, Andre Custodio’s Audible Method deploys synthesizers & processors we can’t possibly fathom to dive into ambient depths we fully perceive only on a subliminal plane! So wander the stacks and let your mind go where it wants. Saturday night, jazz club swings into play at 7:30 as four solid senders known as the North Berkeley Jazz Quartet will deliver two satisfying sets of jazz, ranging across bebop, latin and straight ahead terrain… And then it’s Sunday! Jerry Ferraz explores the workings of his guitar and memory beginning around 11:30, and Walker Brents takes the stage at 2:30 to cogitate…

$20 cover charge; $10 for students / musicians / low income Ian Carey, trumpet Keith Saunders, piano Robb Fisher, bass Ron Marabuto, drums [arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlTxPby7eaQ” /] The North Berkeley Jazz Quartet comprises veteran professionals drawn together about five years ago by geographic proximity, common long experience in top-level gigging on the national and international stage, plenty of bandstand associations in a variety of situations over the years, and a shared affinity for latin, bebop and straight ahead jazz. Bassist Robb Fisher came to prominence in the mid-1970s working with Cal Tjader and Pancho Sanchez as well as Art Pepper, Carmen McCrae, Clare Fischer, Tania Maria and Anita O’Day. Locally, he’s worked extensively with the likes of Akira Tana, Eddie Marshall, Peter Horvath, Vince Lateano, Mark Levine, Mel Martin and George Cotsirilos.  Robb says he finds it very inspiring to play with this group. All, including mainstay player Bob Kenmotsu, who’s off in Japan…

$15 cover charge. $10 for the merely curious. $5 for students / musicians / low income Didjeridu, percussion and cello-sintir meets, for the n-thousandth time, B flat, alto and bass clarinets and percussion in the original formulation of Trance Mission. Notable performances of the duo and its descendants include Maybeck Studio, Live Oak Festival, Freight & Salvage, Slim’s, Palm’s Playhouse, Yoshi’s and many more. The digital aura remarkably marries the indigenous instrumentation with a rare naturalness, resonating with the full flame of world-derived trance power. — Sam Prestianni A unique Aboriginal, African and European fusion. Their rhythmic, trance-inducing music for didgeridoo, drums and synthesizer makes a perfect soundtrack. — j. poet This is such deep, exploratory, soulful music…unlike anything I’ve ever heard. It’s world music, yes, but at the same time its progressive, jazzy, tribal, traditional, jamming, driving, trance rhythms…I hear something new everytime I put this CD on. — PG, Dirty Linen

$10-20 suggested donation; $5 for students / musicians / low income 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, named for the guy who started it all 16 years ago! The five musicians who make up the current band share a history in the local jazz scene that dates back 60 years, to the 1950s & ’60s. Ray Loeckle, tenor sax Jerry Logas, baritone sax, clarinet, flute and vocals Glen Deardorff, guitar Dean Reilly, bass Tony Johnson, drums

Vocalist Kati Pienimäki Schenker and bassist Noah Schenker perform a range of material from jazz standards to pop tunes to Finnish tango and more. They are joined by Keith Saunders on piano and Jon Arkin on drums

Students in the SF Conservatory of Music’s “Roots, Jazz & American Music” BMUS degree program host their peers from Bay Area colleges and high schools. This year, 22 musicians in their freshman and sophmore years. Amazing talent! For 100 years, the Conservatory kept jazz at bay. No longer! No cover charge. Donations to support the bookshop that supports the students are very much appreciated.

Mary Ratcliffe, Editor of the San Franciso Bay View Newspaper, says: “Leroy Franklin Moore, Jr., aka The Black Kripple, the Champion of Disabled People in the Media, loves the least of us. Who is more maligned, more ignored and downtrodden than Black disabled people? Leroy’s love is fierce and uncompromsing. He roars like a lion on behalf of his pride: ‘I am here! I am worthy! My life matters!’” And Wanda Coleman, one of America’s foremost African American poets, one of the great poets period, says: “In the tradition of History’s word warriors, Leroy Moore pens full-frontal confrontations that blast away the last nasty vestiges of Faith-based America’s biases against the poor, the disarranged and the different.” “Tongo Eisen-Martin’s syntax lands somewhere between Sphinx and Thelonious…through poem he makes spare, efficient, wild-eyed jazz…rubs mud and accountability into the pores of the zeros and ones in the glass and steel city. Throughout SOMEONE’S DEAD ALREADY,…

$10-20 suggested donation. $5 for students / musicians / low income.

$10 requested donation; $5 for students / musicians / low income. $20 if you can afford it and truly believe in the value of this music and its treasured proponents! Pianist Larry Vuckovich, having played throughout the years with so many of the jazz greats, has acquired an extensive repertoire of stories about these legendary figures. His vast knowledge of American jazz performance and its recorded history has given him unrivaled insight into the qualities of countless instrumental and vocal masterpieces. In this storytelling/commentary presentation, “El Vuko” will offer unique insight into gems of American jazz as well as great jazz from around the globe. You’ll hear keyboard illustrations, inspired recordings and tales of jazz musicians and the jazz life as only one steeped in the music from an early age who has performed at the highest level for more than a half century can provide. “If you’re wondering what…

$10-20 suggested donation; $5 for students / musicians / low income. Joe Goldmark , pedal steel guitar; Mitch Polzak, lead guitar and vocals; Hank Maninger, bass guitar and vocals; Kenny Owen, drums. The Seducers have had a monthly gig at Bird & Beckett for nearly three years, playing classic, outlaw and honky tonk songs by the likes of Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Bobby Bare, plus originals and a few from left field. Look for the Seducers every second Sunday in San Francisco’s premier little bookshop/listening room. Bring a beer if that’s your inclination, but for one outing a month you’ll get a nice break from the barroom clatter that can sometimes obscure the beauty of these fabulous bits of American genius. Seriously! You won’t regret it for a minute. BYOB and kick back. It all makes for a lovely way to spend a Sunday evening before returning to…