$20 cover charge. $10 for students/musicians/fixed income. NYC saxophonist Caroline Davis returns to Bird & Beckett with a quartet featuring fellow New Yorkers Carmen Staaf on piano and Noah Garabedian on bass, and Evan Hughes on drums. New York Times critic Giovanni Russonello added Caroline’s tune “Footloose and Fancy Free” from her new release “Heart Tonic” to the Times’ March 23, 2018 weekly “Playlist” (alongside the release from the vault of a 1960 live date in Europe by Miles Davis and John Coltrane). He writes that her “cerebral, modern jazz…has a convincing pulse and a wide berth for fetching improvisations.” [arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCpguyAPN7E” /] Mobile since her birth in Singapore, composer, saxophonist, and educator Caroline Davis now lives in Brooklyn, New York. After making her mark on the Chicago jazz community during her 8-year stint there, she moved to New York in 2013, and has proven to be an active leader and…

$15 cover charge. $5 for students/musicians/fixed income. One of Bird & Beckett’s favorite tango quartets returns to one of its favorite used bookstores! Tango No. 9 (violinist Catharine Clune, trombonist Greg Stephens, tenor Zoltan diBartolo, and pianist Joshua Raoul Brody) serve up a potpourri of classic tango, Astor Piazzolla’s tango nuevo, a smattering of waltzes and milongas, a soupçon of art song and a handful of originals — something for everyone! This is the band’s final appearance of the summer! Don’t miss it!

$10-20 suggested donation. $5 suggested for students/musicians/fixed income. The legacy band! Chuck Peterson put this unit together several years ago, as a fresh iteration in a direct line of evolution from the earliest days of Bird & Beckett’s Friday evening jazz party. What Chuck started in 2002 with a trio playing weekly has grown like Topsy, and spreads now over the entire weekend. No divine intervention necessary– the community makes it happen! Now, the 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band sports a core line-up of Jerry Logas on baritone sax, clarinet and vocals; Ray Loeckle on tenor sax; Glen Deardorff on guitar; Dean Reilly on bass; and Tony Johnson on drums — swingin’ and boppin’ from 5:30 to 8:00 pm on the fourth Friday of every month. Chuck sits in on flute whenever he can be in town, though he retired up to Santa Rosa a couple years…

Traveling out of New York City, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Johnson (sax, clarinet, flute) joins San Francisco’s own Smith Dobson, a multi-instrumentalist himself (reeds, drums, vibes). On this date, Dobson will go head to head with Johnson on tenor and soprano sax. The rhythm section will comprise NY-based bassist Hans Glawischnig and local heroes Keith Saunders on piano and James Gallagher on drums. Johnson considers himself a member of a new generation of mainstream jazz musicians that’s embracing older styles of jazz and the great American songbook. At the same time, he’s an adventurous multi-instrumentalist who has freelanced extensively in the commercial and classical music worlds, immersed himself in the avant-garde and lectured on the history of jazz at renowned institutions such Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York University and the College of William and Mary. Aaron leads his own working quartet in New York, and can be found performing frequently with Slide…

Karina DeNike, vocals; Michael McIntosh, piano; Tom Griesser, saxophones; Joe Kyle, Jr., bass; Randy Lee Odell, drums. The Cottontails wail in a wide range of styles, from 20’/30’s Gatsby-era jazz, to classic 40’s swing, to vintage 50’s/60’s R&B.

  D’Armous Boone, tenor saxophone Arlington Houston, acoustic bass Ben Ring, drums This date marks the debut of D’Armous Boone & Another Standard. D’Armous elaborates: “The concept is to take compositions/songs from other genres of music and play them in a mostly straight-ahead jazz fashion.  While the concept is in no way something new, the song selections may be just slightly left of what most people may expect to hear from bands that take on such a concept. “In addition to ‘covering’ tunes, patrons can also look forward to hearing some original compositions based on the harmonic and/or rhythmic concepts of ‘non-jazz’ tunes.  Again, not a new concept, but the surprise may be in what songs these original compositions are based on. “All in all we are looking forward to a night of enjoyable music with a surprise or three thrown in for good measure!”  

Veterans of the Bossa Nova! The late-Sunday-night house band of the famed Club Deluxe, long-time favorite of the late Jay Johnson, the Deluxe’s heart and soul… Vocalist Liza Silva, with Ray Loeckle on sax, Ray Scott on guitar, Alex Baum on bass and Bill Belasco on drums.  Sao Paulo soul!!! Sao Paulo-born, Liza Silva toured internationally for years with Walter Wanderley–the man who helped popularize bossa nova in America and around the world in the 60’s with the hit “Summer Samba.” She’s also shared the stage with Brazilian greats including Joao Gilberto, Elsa Soares and Beth Carvalho, with Sade, Boz Skaggs and Bonnie Raitt, with Tito Puente, and with Bay Area luminaries Paula West, Tammy Hall, Wayne Wallace, Denise Perrier and Kim Nalley. For years, Liza has dedicated herself to performing traditional Brazilian repertoire for American and international audiences — Samba, Bossa Nova, Afro-Samba, Forro, Samba-Pagode, Samba-Reggae, Lambada and Carnival…

Scott Foster, guitar; Ollie Dudek, bass; and Omar Aran, drums play Friday, July 20th, 5:30-8:00 pm at Bird & Beckett, “San Francisco’s Southernmost Literary & Jazz Joint.” Says Scott, “The trio would like to invite any musicians down for a summer hang. Please bring your axe and come play with us.” “jazz in the bookshop” at Bird & Beckett every Friday, since 2002. Live music at Bird & Beckett 20-30 times every month. Poetry featured readers and open mic every first & third Monday.

Our gratitude goes out to the lovely folks in the Aloha Uke Squad for rallying to raise dough to keep our coffers from emptying & our larder full! Bring your ukulele if you’re game to join in… or just come to revel in the sound of four strings multiplied by a factor of many! Surest cure for the political blues we can think of! Want to learn to play one of these sweet little things yourself? It’ll restore your sanity and sense of hope in a hot second! Embarking on such a journey, it’s not a bad idea to get a little history… Read this story from the Honolulu Star Advertiser about the second generation of  Kamaka ukulele makers (pictured above), their progenitors and descendants. Kamaka Ukulele and Guitar Works was started in 1916 by Samuel Kaialiilii Kamaka when he established the company in the cellar of his home in Honolulu. He…

Kathleen McClung is the author of two collections of poetry, The Typists Play Monopoly (2018) and Almost the Rowboat (2013). Her poetry, memoir, and fiction appear widely in journals and anthologies. Recipient of the Rita Dove Poetry Award from Salem College 2012 International Literary Awards, Kathleen was selected by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the 2012 National Poetry Competition sponsored by the Cultural Center of Cape Cod. Nye also honored Kathleen’s work in The MacGuffin’s 2017 National Poet Hunt. Kathleen has taught writing and literature classes at Skyline College in San Bruno, California for over twenty years.  Dawn McGuire is a neurologist and poet, the author of four poetry collections, most recently American Dream with Exit Wound, a finalist for the 2018 Northern California Book Award. She has received numerous prizes, including the Indie Book Award in Poetry for her 2012 collection, The Aphasia Cafe, and the Sarah…

$20 suggested donation; $10 for regulars, fixed income & students…it’s all very voluntary, but do help us support the Bay Area’s great professional jazz musicians to the extent you’re able! Bird & Beckett presents well over 200 live music events annually! This afternoon… Ian Carey, trumpet & flugelhorn; Sheldon Brown, saxophones & flute; Dan Zemelman, piano; Fred Randolph, basses/composition; Greg Wyser-Pratt, drums. Original material by one of the Bay Area’s first-call bassists. [arve url=”https://youtu.be/jxkXYVY7umM” /] Fred Randolph was born in raised in Hawaii, starting out on ukulele as a child, and switching to guitar at 11 when he first heard Jimi Hendrix on record. Just a few years later, in high school, the work of guitarist Howard Roberts and organist Jimmy Smith led him deep into jazz. He says that with that, “my musical direction was forever altered. I began to seriously study and play jazz, first on the guitar,…