Raising the Voices of Women of Color! Deborah Santana – activist, author, and editor of All the Women in My Family Sing – hosts contributors to the anthology: Samina Ali, La Rhonda Crosby-Johnson, Denise Diaab and Camille Hayes.  A new collection of essays by America Ferrera, Belva Davis, Marian Wright Edelman, Natalie Baszile, Porochista Khakpour, Samina Ali, Nayomi Munaweera, and many more, All the Women in My Family Sing gives voice to a new era, a vital anthology of prose and poetry. It  captures the aspirations and wisdom of women of color as they exercise autonomy, creativity, and dignity and build bridges to heal the brokenness in today’s turbulent world. Sixty-nine authors ― African American, Asian American, Chicana, Native American, Cameroonian, South African, Korean, LGBTQI ― lend their voices to broaden cross-cultural understanding and to build bridges to each other’s histories and daily experiences of life. Editor Deborah Santana is an author, seeker and activist for…

Listen to the interview with Fanny Renoir you’ll find at this link (scroll down to “The Road to Enlightenment,” Episode 6 of the Passport Podcast). San Francisco has an incredibly rich recent present, whether you date it from 1946 or 1961 or 1968 or 1971 or… 1899… name your year. So much of it revolves around poetry and music, and around the North Beach and Mission District cafes, and around individuals who have held tenaciously and at the same time effortlessly to long tendrils of culture that grow here. They may live here and now, but Paris and Rome and Calcutta are part of it too. So come make contact with some of your own past and some of the City’s and the world’s eternal now. We’re lucky to be here now, wherever and whenever that might be. Oh, and feel free to read in the open. Jerry Ferraz will…

The Alcatraz Islanders perform swing era Hawaiian music that blends traditional island melodies with mainland jazz. The band is led by steel guitarist, Mikiya Matsuda, with Nick Rossi on guitar, Dan Neville on vibes and Vic Wong on bass. You can catch them in San Francisco every Tuesday at Pagan Idol and every first Wednesday at Club Deluxe, as well as the occasional Sunday brunch at Trader Vic’s in Emeryville. Hear a bit of their music at this link: http://www.alcatrazislanders.com/sounds/

With a financial assist from Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund, the Jazz Philanthropists Union presents… The Five Spot Jazz Quintet Five musicians beyond description, together propelling a sweet little juggernaut of jazz feeling! Hailing from Dursley, England, pianist Mike Greensill might be best known in the Bay Area as resident piano player on Sedge Thomson’s weekly Public Radio show, “West Coast Live,” as well as his role as musical director to vocalist Wesla Whitfield, with whom he’s recorded more then twenty albums. Not just a superlative pianist, he’s also a gifted composer. The band showcases Mike’s compositions and some tasty vocals too. Saxophonist Charlie McCarthy comes from a musical family — his father was an accomplished trombone player in the Bay Area. His playing experience includes many of the greats in jazz including Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, George Shearing, Stan Getz, Joe Williams, and many others.…

Kahil El’Zabar – traps, percussion, vocals Corey Wilkes – trumpet Alex Harding – reeds

This  may or may not be the Bastet! Either way, it’s Justin Rock, a firecracker of a jazz guitarist with a lot on his mind, most of it private! With collaborators Owen Clapp on bass and Mike Quigg on drums, he’ll rock the joint this Friday and Friday next. Jazz in the bookshop just got a whole new twist. Come on out!

Howard Alden is a formidable guitarist with an international reputation, visiting California this winter for a number of dates with violinist Kit Eakle, well known as an historian of the violin in jazz. Alden and Eakle are embarking on a run of quartet dates around the Bay Area exploring the music of Thelonious Monk and Django Reinhardt. Here, they’ll strip it down to duo and solo work. Alden notes, “the chance to play this music in a duo format is very special to me and will create an entirely different vibe from the quartet shows. I love the duo format, it creates an intimate and unique atmosphere with every different personality, whether with another guitarist or one horn like my meetings with Warren Vaché, Anat Cohen, Ken Peplowski and others over the years.” We’re delighted that Howard Alden has developed an affinity for the Bird & Beckett audience and that he’ll…

 . Guitarist Howard Alden on Thursday, the 1st;   The Justin Rock Trio (Bastet) on Friday, the 2nd (early show);   Kahil El’Zabar Ethnic Heritage Ensemble 45th Anniversary Show on Friday, the 2nd (late show);   The Five Spot Jazz Quintet on Saturday, the 3rd;   Nasty Women Poets on Sunday, the 4th (2pm);   The Alcatraz Islanders on Sunday, the 4th (4:30pm)!  

Two favorite collaborators join one of San Francisco’s most astonishingly talented pianists for two sets of standards, bop, little known gems and originals. Grant Levin, piano Charles Thomas, bass Pepe Jacobo, drums

Novalis, arch Romantic poet of the 18th century, precursor to Goethe, perceptive of the ancient wisdom embodied in Heraclitus’ observation, “Wisdom is a dry light.”

The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents…   The Lost Shapes   Darren Johnston, trumpet Kasey Knudsen, alto sax Mark Clifford, vibraphone Safa Shokrai, bass Jason Levis, drum set   All five members contribute compositions to the band’s book.

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 — once the province of the estimable Chuck Peterson — five musicians whose history on the local jazz scene dates back 60 years, to the very early 1950s. Ray Loeckle and Jerry Logas, reeds Duncan James, guitar Dean Reilly, bass Tony Johnson, drums

Dan Liberthson is a Glen Park resident, and a poet with five published collections to his credit, including his newest, A Poetry of Birds: Poems About Birds and the Photographs that Inspired Them (2017). A Poetry of Birds comprises 38 poems about various bird species paired with photographs of the birds by naturalist and wildlife photographer Ron LeValley. The poems reflect on the beauty, lives, and behaviors of the birds, both in themselves and as they relate to human life. Dan was born in Rochester, New York, and attended Reed College, Northwestern University (BA, history) and SUNY at Buffalo (PhD, English). His poetry and writing are driven by a few core beliefs: the importance of telling a story, the need to tell it in a disciplined way, and a belief that the sound of the language, too often neglected, is a forceful agent of expression. Most of his books of…

wordWind is QR Hand, Lewis Jordan and Brian Auerbach — 3 poets, with Lewis Jordan doubling on saxophone. Two very special guests will also be on hand — trumpeter George Sams and poet Tongo Eisen-Martin. q.r. hand, jr., voice and poetry, moved to the SF Bay Area from NYC about forty years ago. Originally published in the 1968 classic, Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro American Writing, edited by Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) and Larry Neal, which has recently been reproduced by Black Classics Press, he is the author of three poetry books, i speak to the poet in man (jukebox press), how sweet it is (Zeitgeist Press) and whose really blues, new & selected poems (Taurean Horn Press). Lewis Jordan, saxophone and poetry, is the producer of Music at Large (an interdisciplinary music and arts project).  He focuses on creative structures for improvisation, and his interest continues to be meeting and working with performers who delve into their deeper resources…