Three Heads Gone is a collaboration among three poets long associated in the San Francisco swirl of words & music & art. A serial poem, they call it… a Two Way Mirror Book hot off the press. Ava Koohbor is a native Farsi speaker poet and visual artist who now lives in San Francisco. During the last couple of years, many of her poems appear in various publications. Her chapbook, Triangle Squared, has been published by Bootstrap Press. She appreciates whatever art offers to her in any and all forms. She believes that each artist is a medium to transfer the world of possibilities to what is. Patrick James Dunagan lives in San Francisco and works at Gleeson Library for the University of San Francisco. His latest books are Three Heads Gone w/ Ava Koohbor & Marina Lazzara (Two Way Mirror) and Sketch of the Artist (fmsbw). Marina Lazzara holds an MA…

Ukulele Jam Fundraiser for Bird & Beckett Books and Records Bring your uke and come on out to strum, jam, and just enjoy ukulele music! All levels are welcome. Play at your own level and sing along. Or just come and listen to everyone else! Aloha Uke Squad is accepting song requests, from the community, for the April 2 fundraiser jam! Please contact us, in advance please, to let us know your song choice, and if you are willing to lead your song at the jam! Mahalo!!!!! Facebook: @alohaukesquad Instagram: @alohaukesquad Email: [email protected]

A Night Horn Press celebration… On April 1st, poet and Night Horn Press publisher Robert Anbian joins poet Michael Koch to recite verse and celebrate Night Horn’s most recent release, Koch’s poetry collection Street Theology.  The featured readers will be followed by the usual Monday open mic.    

with Kirk Harwood, drums Takezo Takeda, guitar

The Mythological Tao: A Convocation of Image and Meaning. A consideration of primordial writings, and their ways of interpreting present-day consciousness. I see it as an element of a trilogy, incorporating Chinese, Vedic, and Sufic flavorings.  

Saturday, March 30th 7:30 – 10:00 PM What the World Needs Now: The Burt Bacharach Songbook Dmitri Matheny, flugelhorn Ken French, piano Ron Belcher bass Greg Wyser-Pratte drums 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 eleven CDs and touring extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.TheSan Francisco Chronicle calls Matheny “one of the jazz world’s most talented horn players.”

The Grant Levin Quartet featuring Noel Jewkes Noel Jewkes, reeds Grant Levin, piano Kash Killion, bass Mark Lee, drums every Friday after work

Sylvia Cuenca on drums Roni Ben-Hur on guitar Harvie S on bass

Rob Sudduth, saxophone Dahveed Behroozi, piano Jason Lewis, drums

Both poets have new books to read from: Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Karen Hildebrand) and Posttraumatic (Ron Riekki).     About Karen Hildebrand’s Crossing Pleasure Avenue, one reviewer had this to say: “Karen Hildebrand’s poetry is like sociology—if sociology could be felt by the hairs on one’s neck and seen in fragrant, Fauvist Technicolor. Her brilliant debut full-length collection, Crossing Pleasure Avenue, reminds us of the strangeness of the everyday and the pleasure in those ripe moments when the past and the present buckle and overlap.” Ron Riekki’s Posttraumatic (from Hoot & Waddle) “is at turns heartbreaking and hysterically funny, profound and absurd, filled with acerbic wit and a sense of childlike innocence. Drawing on Riekki’s experience in the military, as an EMT, as an actor, his time at a marketing firm in China, and much, much more, the essays contained in Posttraumatic are at times hard to believe, but are never…

The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents…a Jazz in the Neighborhood Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund Event Michael Zilber’s Originals Saxophonist/composer Michael Zilber is hailed as “one of the best players and composers around anywhere, period!” by jazz great David Liebman and called “one of the true masters of the modern jazz saxophone” by All About Jazz. A multiple Downbeat honoree for his CDs and educational work, Zilber will be debuting new pieces on this gig, joined by 3 of the very best the Bay has to offer, Keith Saunders on piano, Peter Barshay on bass and Akira Tana on drums.    

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.