The art of the duo… The last two months of the Grant Levin residency at Bird & Beckett that started in June are underway! In November, we continue it with a duo on the 2nd Tuesday, a trio on the 3rd, a quartet on the 4th. Tonight it’s bassist Joe McKinley making the music with Grant. Joe has been making beautiful music with Grant since they first met on the bandstand. You’ll hear two sets of hugely satisfying music from masters of the art. $10 cover charge for the care and feeding of the musicians. December will break the pattern, as we present two trio dates, on 12/10 and 12/17; Grant will be traveling come the fourth Sunday. In January, it’ll be a new ballgame. Watch our calendar. It’ll be well worth the effort.

Dave Tidball (clarinet, bass clarinet) Jim Dukey (clarinet, bass clarinet) Dick Mathias (clarinet, bass clarinet) Charlie Keagle (clarinet) Here we go again! With this concert, the Albatross Clarinet Quartet will no doubt present an array of new music, plenty of it conceived and arranged very recently indeed. They’re known to go off on tangents, very productively. Bebop to polytonal funk, musical commentary on classical pieces from the late 19th century  and some “free” improvisation. Everything is written by members of the quartet. Except what they steal to put to their good uses.

Klipschutz hosts… Three on a Match! The New, Improved Reading Series… featuring Paul Fericano • His poetry and prose have appeared in publications and media outlets in the U.S. and abroad since 1971, including Miramar, The Realist, Mother Jones, The New York Quarterly, Saturday Night Live, The Wormwood Review, Krokodil (Moscow) and Charlie Hebdo (Paris). Satirist, social activist and native San Franciscan, he is the recipient of the Prix de Voltaire (France) and the Ambrose Bierce Prize (San Francisco). His most recent collection of poetry is The Hollywood Catechism (Silver Birch Press, 2015). Don Skiles • He’s the author of Miss America and Other Stories, The James Dean Jacket Story, and the novel Football (Pelekinesis Press, 2014). His work has appeared in many magazines, including Qaartsiluni, Snowmoneky, Silenced Press, Over the Transom, MungBeing, and Chicago Quarterly Review. His collection of short fiction, Rain After Midnight, was published in 2017 by…

A jazz legend, the drummer Danny Spencer leads a quintet featuring Noel Jewkes on sax, David Udolf on piano and Carla Kaufman on bass, with vocalist Sherri Roberts singing some favorites. Danny came out of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Detroit in 1964 and had already acquired a huge reputation and vast experience when he came out to San Francisco in 1975. Besides gigging internationally from his San Francisco base, including national and European tours with Joe Henderson, he drove the fantastic Contemporary Jazz Orchestra at Pearls in North Beach, a vital organization holding the stage long before the days of the Bay Area Composer’s Big Band and the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra… But before the CJO, back in Detroit, he had the Contemporary Jazz Quintet, with lps on Blue Note in 1968 and 1969. Along the way he was a monstrously powerful drummer behind major artists including Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon,…

An extended Friday night jazz party gets our 16th year of Friday nights off to a fabulous start… two groups will share the stage for the evening, starting with the Adam Gay Quartet at 5:30 and continuing in alternating short sets until 9:30 pm with Sandra Aran’s latin dance band, Ritmojito! Come early and stay late, or drop in for a few tunes. You can’t go wrong. The Adam Gay Quartet features some of the Bay’s top players… Bob Kenmotsu, tenor sax; Keith Saunders, piano; Adam Gay on bass; James Gallagher on drum slinging bebop and hard bop standards.  Ritmojito is vocalist Sandra Aran’s band, with Richard Nelson Hall, piano, Dean Muench, bass and Dan Foltz, drums, delivering superbly crafted songs with deep latin jazz grooves, salsa to ska to samba. Bird & Beckett is where you want to be this Friday night! BTW, it’s BYOB at B&B since the…

Julie Rogers and Gene Berson met in 2011 at City Lights, the night of David Meltzer’s launch for his book, “When I Was A Poet”, #60 in the Pocket Poet Series. It was a big deal. Julie read too, first up. Afterward, Gene stood in line to get his book signed. He approached and congratulated David on his magnificent reading, turned to Julie and said, “you weren’t too shabby either.” They’ve been friends ever since. Julie says, “I just can’t imagine staying planted on this crazy boulder cycling through space without writing. I must have stuff to learn, and I need rocks, trees, people, open hearted transparency, words, poems, artworks, books, music, and love to do this. Since life keeps displaying its insane splendor, there’s always something to say. Several books have spilled out, most recently House of the Unexpected and Street Warp, and the CD ‘Two-Tone Poetry & Jazz’,…

Joe Goldmark, pedal steel, leads a country music supergroup, tonight with special guest vocalist Lynne Maes of Nashville Honeymoon joining Hank Maninger on lead guitar and vocals, Tim Wagar on bass and Kenny Owen, the Haiku Cowboy, on drums. You’ll undoubtedly hear some classic duets lodged in the American soul by George Jones & Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty, Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner… A lot of Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams, to boot. And a fistful of wonderful originals by Joe as well, unless we miss our bet! 23 shows so far in the past two years at Bird & Beckett — appearing the first Sunday of every month through the end of the year! After that, the Seducers move to the second Sunday slot. You can also hear them now, once again, on the fourth Sunday of every month at the Riptide out on Taravall!…

Michael Zisman, mandolin;  Scott Foster and Jason Vanderford, guitars; Joe Kyle, Jr., bass. Certainly the darlings of all San Franciscans who’ve ever witnessed their family ruckus at the Deluxe, the Americano Social Club is led by Michael Zisman on mandolin and features guitarists Jason Vanderford and Scott Foster and bassist Joe Kyle, Jr.   They play music for “la dolce vita”: a mix of romantic and eclectic melodies from all over the world, and they’re nothing short of fantastic!

Golden Circle Septet CD Release Concert! “Tenerife” Dan Neville, vibes and compositions Destiny Muhammad, harp Rebecca Kleinmann, alto flute Grant Levin, piano Shimpei Ogawa, bass Pepe Jacobo, drums special guest Anthony Blea, violin $20 cover charge  

fresh groove music for omnivores… Flowtilla is a San Francisco Bay Area based trio formed in 2000 by guitarist Len Paterson, and bassist Ellen Schoenwetter. Their driving sound is an eclectic mix of funk, rock, afro, jazz and world tinged grooves. Drummer Randy Lee Odell completes the trio this evening in Bird & Beckett’s “canyon moonlight” concert series. Flowtilla’s music has been used on cable t.v shows as well as commercial cues. These include A&E Biography specials on Stevie Wonder, Billy Crystal and Kirstie Alley, HBO’s Real Sex, Gene Simmons Family Jewels and Emeril Green’s “Green Planet.” Flowtilla released their first cd. under the name “Len Paterson Trio”, which they self produced on their own label, Acorn Sonata. Entitled “Sunny Cloudy”, it was voted one of the top 10 records of 2001 on JamBase. Len Paterson also made the top 10 guitarist list. They have released three more self produced…

Welcome Simon Rowe, new Glen Park resident and also the new and founding director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Roots, Jazz & American Music program. The “Simon Rowe Latin Project” led by pianist Simon Rowe showcases the talents of Cuban conguero Carlos Caro,drummer Brian Kendrick and bassist Gerry Pineda. Inspired by the the way in which music from Cuba, Brazil and the Americas has found its way into the global jazz canon, this group puts a unique spin on many familiar jazz standards while also visiting the work of composers such as Ernesto Lecuona, Chano Pozo and Dizzy Gillespie. Executive Director of the Roots, Jazz and American Music Program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Dr. Simon Rowe is a distinguished educator, entrepreneur, and artist in the jazz field. Along with leading the Simon Rowe Trio and the Simon Rowe Latin Project, Rowe has played with many…

Maurice Tani has been called a “cartographer of the heart” and he’s just released an acclaimed  new album, “The Lover’s Card.” Stripped down to the essentials and painted flat black, American bassist Mike Anderson has Maurice’s back.  

Internationally renowned jazz guitarist and composer John Stein has released many wonderful albums under his own name and performs internationally as well as maintaining a faculty position at Berklee College of Music.  He has played live and recorded with some of the world’s finest jazz artists, including David “Fathead” Newman, Larry Goldings, Lou Donaldson, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Bill Pierce. John Stein . . . the poet of the classical jazz guitar. –Dick Crockett “The Voice” — 88.7 fm What a gift this man has. He’s in an elite class: a mere handful of jazz guitarists who consistently put taste above chops and flash. John Stein has the ability to say so much more with less effort than most of his contemporaries can muster. –Wayne Everett Goins, Kansas City Jazz Ambassadors Magazine Stein has the touch — a bond with the guitar that only comes from deep spiritual dedication to those strings. Playing…