Vince Lateano, drums Peter Barshay, bass Ben Stolorow, piano All jazz players welcome to take the stage. Or just come to listen. No cover charge. If you can’t make it into the shop, you might be able to catch the live stream on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. If you do, your donations to help pay the trio and support the stream are much appreciated! But keep in mind the live jazz experience is always more exciting when you’re in the room with the musicians when they’re playing their music! Bird & Beckett adheres to the guaranteed fair wage standard promoted by the Independent Musicians Alliance.

Phillip Greenlief, saxophone; Dan Seamans, bass; Tom Hassett, drums with special guest Ian Carey, trumpet. Originals and the likes of Bird, Monk, Ornette, Wayne Shorter… The Lost Trio, now celebrating 28 years of wandering through the landscapes of jazz, is excited to announce the latest chapter in their collaborations – this time with trumpeter/composer Ian Carey. These long-standing Bay Area wizards will perform compositions by Carey, along with their tradition of surprising their audiences with unexpected song selections, including a few tunes by the saxophone giant and recently-departed Wayne Shorter. The Lost Trio has been at it as a unit of deep and adventurous improvisors for more than a couple of decades. Top flight players all. And Ian? Having studied in New York with jazz legends including Reggie Workman, Billy Harper and Andrew Cyrille, he’s lived and worked in the Bay Area since 2001, performing with local bandleaders including Bryan…

Come out for the late set at Bird & Beckett, Fridays from 9-10:30pm! Kicking off nine consecutive Fridays of late shows after their fabulous Bird & Beckett debut in early March, bassist Dewayne Oakley and guitarist Ralph Nelson offer a gorgeous romp through a rich repertoire of blues, soul and jazz on March 24th. March 31st, it’s the Charles Unger Experience… 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 videos below, and come to the show! There’s nothing like being in the room with the musicians and their music. Video

Shake off the workweek with a happy hour or two in the company of veteran drummer Tony Johnson and his merry crew — Bob Kenmotsu on tenor saxophone, Keith Saunders on piano and Matt Montgomery on upright bass. Two solid sets of straight ahead jazz & bebop, swing & bossa nova. Tony has been plying his trade in San Francisco since he immigrated from Australia in 1959. Straight off, he was busy in the clubs and on the road — and recorded a memorable album live at The Cellar on Grant Avenue in North Beach in 1960 with vocalist Bev Kelly, in the company of saxophonist Pony Poindexter. He’s never stopped since. BYOB and a twenty for the band! Can’t make it to the show? On Fridays, we’ll be streaming just the second set, starting at about 7pm. To hear the first set, you’ll need to brave the elements and…

On Friday, March 24th, the Tony Johnson Quartet, with Bob Kenmotsu, Keith Saunders and Eric Markowitz, swings the blues from bebop to bossa 5:30-8pm. But we’re not done at 8! The Dewayne Oakley Blues Ensemble kicks off a late Friday time slot in earnest, 9-10:30pm. We don’t promise a late show every Friday, though we’ve got a tight little sequence planned for you from late March to mid-May, so turn out in force and show us it can work! Get on that social media and tell your friends “meet us at Bird & Beckett!” Byob and a twenty for the band! There’s more in store for you for the weekend, of course! The Lost Trio (Phillip Greenlief, saxophone; Dan Seamans, bass and Tom Hassett, drums) digs in deep with guest trumpet player and composer Ian Carey on Saturday, March 25th from 7:30-9:30pm. And on Sunday, March 26th, from 5-7pm, it’s…

  Dark Days and a Black Dog, performed by esteemed actor Andrea Snow and directed by Jael Weisman (both Obie Award winners) from the book by Emily Keeler, evokes seven heartwrenching, darkly comic years in the writer’s life, at once shocking and breathtakingly familiar.   Emily Keeler is a four-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowship who has worked as a dancer, choreographer and writer in San Francisco and New York since the 1970s.   Debuted by the company at Bird & Beckett in January, Andrea’s performance of Emily’s work under Jael’s direction brought gasps of delight and shudders of recognition. We’re more than pleased to revisit this work en route to its discovery by theater audiences far afield.   _________________________________ From the first audience: “Thank you, Andrea, for your bravura performance…. The poems are guided by the poet’s dogged presence in the phenomenological world; the…

Enjoy a classic jazz trio, led by drummer Vince Lateano–a crucial presence 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 a twenty for the band!   Check out this video of a recent performance by the  trio… Vince Lateano Trio at Bird & Beckett, November 2022   This is not the time to leave town, though it might just be the right weekend for a visit from afar! To get to Glen Park from Vince Lateano’s North Beach beat, ride  MUNI’s T-Line (the Central Subway) to Powell Street from the Bayview or from Chinatown’s Rose Pak Station at Stockton & Washington, and grab…

Bossa Nova crooner Masha Campagne and her project Voz Da Lapa celebrate passion & saudade of Brazilian Samba & Bossa, honoring creativity & artistic modernization of Tom Jobim, Gilberto Gil, and other Brazilian legends. JazzTimes magazine noted that “Brazilian stylist Campagne is blending the wistfulness of Astrud Gilberto with the robust liquidity of Flora Purim” praising her spellbinding, sensuous vocals full of rich fire, deep soul, creativity and flair. Campagne is one of the most lauded voices in the Bay Area, with three internationally acclaimed CDs to her credit. Her recent 2022 engagements included SFJAZZ &  SJZ BoomBox stages. Official Website: www.mashacampagnemusic.com No Fundo Do Rio Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.ALU4KyLJT9k Masha Campagne -Vocals/Percussion Gaea Schel – Flute William Bohrer – Guitar Percussion – TBA

Guitarist Scott Foster makes jazz new each and every time out, and always swings. Every third Friday, he presents a fresh ensemble at Bird & Beckett. This week Scott is joined by featured artist Kevin Rayhill on piano, and great jazz players well familiar to Bird & Beckett audiences — Jim Peterson on sax, Dan Seamans on bass and Bryan Bowman on drums. Kevin was a regular fixture on the local jazz scene in the ’90s, playing at 42 Degrees and other venues, and has been keeping it going as a solo pianist lately. This is a reboot of the kind of thing he was getting to back then, with some really interesting material from modern jazz composers and including some of his own originals. $25 contribution requested to help us pay the quintet! byob, a twenty and a five! but as always, pay what you can.

Francis Wong, saxophones William Roper, tuba Scott Oshiro, flute & electronics Jordan Glenn, drums with poet Lynn Huang Francis Wong and William Roper go way back, and take it forward with two young lions. $20 cover charge (cash please) reservations, call 415-586-3733  

In Narrow Escapes, memoirist Louise Nayer takes the reader on a journey filled with danger and romance. Haunted by a terrible accident and adrift in love, the writer travels through Morocco, to New York City and finally, on a solo journey, to California, thousands of miles from her home. Set in the early 70s at a time of cataclysmic change in America, Narrow Escapes resonates with those who find themselves needing to release themselves from a difficult past in search for joy and home. https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/narrow-escapes.html Author Louise Nayer is a long-time educator and author of six books.  Burned: A Memoir was an Oprah Great Read and won the Wisconsin Library Association Award. She received six California Arts Council grants as a poet and has taught for years in community colleges, senior centers and nursing homes. She now teaches at OLLI UC Berkeley and at the Writer’s Grotto where she is…

Alchemy! Not as it seems, this ancient art. Neither is it otherwise. Is it what science was before science became what it is? Yes and no. Were the ancient alchemists really believing they could turn lead into gold? If so, what were their actual raw materials? Regardless of the answers to such questions, Walker Brents III will be offering a way to imagine the wealth of concepts contained in the various symbols of its theory and practice. For two decades, Walker has delved into diverse subjects in his monthly live streamed talks from Bird & Beckett, which you can find at the appointed time on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to support Walker and this project are always welcome and appreciated.

On the second and fourth Monday of each month, San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita Kim Shuck hosts an online poetry series, with featured poets and an open mic on the 2nd Monday and an all-open mic format on the 4th Monday. Information on how to participate follows at the bottom of this post. This evening’s featured poets are Lourdes Figueroa and Yeva Johnson. Lourdes Figueroa is an oral poet. Her poems are a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón in Yolo County. The words el azadón are used by the ones who work in the fields — the work of tilling the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl and Ruidos = To Learn Speak, completed during her Alley Cat Books Residency. Her chapbook Vuelta was recently published by Nomadic Press. She works and lives in Oakland with…

America’s favorite honky tonk band, The Seducers, resident at Bird & Beckett since the Great Riptide Fire of 2015, returns for its regular odd-months second Sundays booking — a Bakersfield to Nashville rave-up that never fails to please. Joe Goldmark, pedal steel master, is captain of the ship, though his charismatic second lieutenants Mitch Polzac on lead guitar and vocals and Hank Maninger on bass guitar and vocals vie for power and influence on the quarterdeck,\ while Chief Poetry Officer Kenny Owen keeps the fire burning and the turbines spinning from the drumkit. Sail on to Seduction!

Two musicians who have long inhabited the liminal spaces of the San Francisco bohemia perform from the Bird & Beckett stage this afternoon. Poet and troubadour, guitarist and painter Jerry Ferraz, born in San Franciscan in 1950, grew up in Eureka Valley, the watershed from Twin Peaks that feeds the Castro District. He wandered the City from a young age, first just taking in the evolution of the culture and soon offering his own poetry and song to whoever he encountered in the cafes, bars, galleries and streets, channeling ancient traditions of France’s Languedoc region, the rural blues of the American South and the dust bowl folk music of the Southwest. He was on the first bill of poets to perform in the bookshop the year we opened, 1999, and has grounded our poetry series ever since. For a few years now, on many a Sunday he’s been found playing…

SF Lives Live Talks–Journalist Denise Sullivan + guest live streamed every 2nd Sunday at 10 a.m. San Francisco journalist Denise Sullivan conducts a monthly series of conversations (the second Sunday of each month from 10-11 a.m.) with The City’s activists, educators, arts and cultural leaders and workers, the everyday people who help make this place we call home, live streamed from Bird & Beckett Books and viewable on the Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. This month Denise is in conversation with Mike Shriver. Shriver has been involved in HIV/AIDS advocacy, activism, program development, organizational development and public policy efforts for over 30 years. He served on the Board of the National AIDS Memorial Grove and was honored with its Lifetime Achievement Award, is an honorary trustee of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), and is one of the organizers of Burrito Project SF. He was a…

Dewayne Oakley, bass violin Raja, vocals Ralph Nelson, guitar Rob Rhodes, drums 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 these videos, and then come to the show. There’s nothing like being in the room with the musicians and their music. And having Raja along for the ride on this date makes us more than  happy. Video  

    Reed and flute player Masaru Koga, who left the Bay Area for New York a few years ago, returns to Bird & Beckett joined by pianist Frank Martin, bassist Essiet Okon Essiet and drummer Sylvia Cuenca for an intimate and open conversation in jazz. $20 cover charge, byob. Reservations – (415) 586-3733

2nd Fridays jazz happy hours are the province of Eric Shifrin and a deep pool of talent he’s cultivated over decades on the San Francisco scene. Tonight, his “Peninsula Project!” from the gutters of North Beach to the gilded shelves of the bookstore. BYOB and some dough for the musicians. A twenty fits the bill very well, but pitch in what fits your economics. Stay for a tune or a set or the whole 2-1/2 hour happy hour! Whatever takes the workweek stress away. Eric & the In Crowd will make it easy and oh, so pleasurable. Eric Shifrin, piano & vocals Rick Brown, trombone Carl Herder, bass Garry Williams, drums

Farhad Bahrami, electric ûd and compositions Hafez Modirzadeh, saxophones John-Carlos Perea, electric bass Amir Abbas Etemadzadeh, tombak and daf Keshav Batish, drums $25 cover charge at the door (cash, please) BYOB.  Reservations, call 415-586-3733.           Born to Iranian teachers on Fullbright scholarships to the U.S., Farhad Bahrami’s childhood was spent in Texas, Tehran, and Oxford. In 1979, he came to San Diego to study engineering at San Diego State University, graduating in 1984 with a bachelor’s in music (composition) and computer science, receiving a master’s in music (ethnomusicology) from SDSU in 2007, having pursued his interests in music in parallel to his career in software. In San Diego, he brought Persian music to the experimental Trummerflora Collective and was co-founder and musical director of Jazmahalis, an ensemble that mixed elements of Persian folk music (mahali) with jazz, recording two albums: one of original pop and dance…

Drummer Myron Cohen carries the spirit of the late Billy Higgins into the present day, with joy and a propulsive, irresistible beat.  In the countless iterations of his Billy Higgins Legacy Project, he honors the mentoring he received by the late great drummer Higgins with his own mentoring of many, many brilliant emerging players, taken under his wing in a burning desire to be true to Higgins’ spirit. Today, he performs with the young saxophonist Peyton Pleninger in an hour-long duo interplay. Peyton Pleninger, a tenor saxophonist, improviser, bandleader and conceptualist still in his twenties, has forged a personal path that challenges the boundaries of what it means to be a musician. His experience involves a variety of disciplines centered around music, which also includes astrology, painting and sculpture, botany, construction, massage and medical inquiry. Pleninger worked as a mentee of Milford Graves, from spring 2019 until Graves’ passing in…

Ocean-inspired originals from three jazaquanuts! Daniel Heffez, tenor sax Adam Shulman, organ Omar Aran, drums $20 cover charge (cash, please) byob          

    Bluesy Jazz for International Women’s Day. Here is a story of a blues woman who meets with other musicians… and then, we have Jazz through her journey. Pat Wilder, guitar and vocals Nzinga Smith, saxophone Mike Rogers, bass Mike R, drums $20 cover charge (cash, please); sliding scale available. byob

Betty Wong presents a number of ensembles and soloists, all closely associated with San Francisco’s century old Community Music Center, reflecting the breadth of the world’s music, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit. The Randy Craig Trio always plays a sweet set of jazz to finish out the program. Come and be in the presence of some San Francisco jewels. No charge, but your donations are welcome and appreciated.

Greg Abate, saxophone Ben Stolorow, piano Matt Montgomery, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums Welcoming the return of the road warrior, a year since his last visit to the Bird & Beckett stage! Greg Abate tours relentlessly and tears it up every time, and this trio is fully up to the challenge. Are you? (We’re quite sure you are; it’s nothing but fun, great bebop, originals and a gorgeous horn player!) $20 cash cover charge. Byob. Reserve: 415-586-3733. www.gregabate.com

$20 cash  cover charge -  byob Reservations, call 415-586-3733 John-Carlos Perea: Native American cedar flutes, drum, voice Masaru Koga: saxophones, flute, shakuhachi   Karl Evangelista: guitar  The John-Carlos Perea trio improvises with and through the shared musical experiences of its members. Featuring guitarist Karl Evangelista and saxophonist/flutist Masaru Koga, the trio will perform music from Cedar Flute Songs, Perea’s upcoming cedar flute album available Spring 2023. This reunion marks the trio’s first performance since Koga’s departure for New York in 2019.  

Luke Schwartz, guitar Curtis Aikens, bass Jeff Pera, drums Keeping the jazz happy hour happy for an hour. byob and a twenty for the trio!

Rachelle Escamilla is a Chicana poet from the Central Coast of California. She has three collections of poetry, Imaginary Animal (Willow Books, 2015, 2nd Edition, 2021), Me Drawing a Picture of Me[n] (Willow Books, 2019), and Space Junk from the Heavenly Palace (Nomadic Press 2023).   Janice Lobo Sapigao is a Filipina American author from the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets. She is an Associate Professor of English at Skyline College. She founded the Santa Clara County Youth Poet Laureate Program when she was the county Poet Laureate from 2020-2021.

The last Sunday of each month, veteran drummer Vince Lateano is at the center of a dynamic and easy going session at Bird & Beckett that attracts old hands and young pups alike, aided by bassist Peter Barshay and pianist Ben Stolorow. Bird & Beckett’s Doggone Session is just the most recent iteration of sessions Vince has been renowned for over the decades at venues including Pier 23, the Dogpatch Saloon, the Seven Mile House (which Vince dubbed the Doghouse Jam) and Sweeties. And while some talents, characters and devotees show up pret’ near every time at these Bird & Beckett sessions, the churn and evolution is constant, and legendary players you’ve never heard of turn up with regularity, drawn by their history and friendship with Vince, a swinging force on the San Francisco jazz scene since he hit North Beach in the mid-1960s. Born and raised in Sacramento, Vince…