Grant Levin, piano Aaron Cohn, bass Ruckus, drums! $15-20 sliding scale cover charge; students – $10

  Bliss Rodriguez piano Erik von Buchau vibraphone Myron Cohen drums      

You’ve taken on your first teaching assignment from the San Francisco Unified School District, at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School: five classes of 8th graders studying U.S. history. Say, 150 students. And a class in the graphic novel open to 6th to 8th graders. Imagine contemplating the $300 materials budget the District has given you for the year. And then realizing that your school in the Portola District has virtually no students from the upper economic echelons whose families might lavish their school with a bit of their personal wealth to make up for the District’s  lack. Fortunately Jackson Whittington (full disclosure, the proprietor’s son), who’s found his way to just such a position, has been generously supported in his efforts by Bird & Beckett patrons. For the past couple of months, they’ve been donating books and cash to help him build up a deep classroom library. He’s made…

Last chance to get in with the in crowd in 2017 — capping more than a dozen In Crowd shows since we started harboring a handful of Riptide refugees back in the late summer of 2015 in the series we’ve called “canyon moonlight music.”  $10-15 requested donation tonight. Be here or be squeere! Eric Shifrin knows his way around the piano– an affable virtuoso of rueful good cheer! He’ll be joined on the bandstand by bassist Paul Smith and the percussionist/traps drummer Raul Ramirez, two long-time associates well suited to bringing out the best in Eric’s music. It’s just what you need to round out what’s been a rough year in Amerikkka! Holding out hope for an effective resistance in 2018… For our part, Bird & Beckett would like to dedicate tonight’s show to Ralph Carney. Ralph, who passed away on December 16th, was a fantastic talent and a legend in the…

Multi-instrumentalist Peck Allmond will be out from Brooklyn over the holidays and is featured on drummer Vince Lateano’s date tonight! $15-20 sliding scale cover charge; students – $10. With Keith Saunders on piano and John Wiitala on bass, you’re in for a superb evening of jazz. Peck is a Bay Area native (he’s a notable member of the Berkeley High generation that includes Benny Green, Josh Jones, Peter Apfelbaum, Sarah Cline–players who gained their prodigious chops in the jazz program led by Phil Hardymon). He’s been Brooklyn-based since 1993, leading the Peck Allmond Quartet for a couple of decades and working with an array of major talents including Oliver Lake, John Hicks, Billy Harper, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Tom Harrell, John Stubblefield, MeShell Ndegeocello, Cindy Blackman, Madeleine Peyroux, Donny McCaslin, and Peter Apfelbaum, as well as James Brown, Rickie Lee Jones, Sean Lennon, Randy Newman, Ray Lamontagne, Wyclef Jean, Allan…

Los Authenticos! thinking of Cuba… Scott Foster, guitar Adam Gay, bass Omar Aran, percussion Sandra Aran on vocals!

The legacy lives on… Chuck Peterson founded our Friday night jazz programming fifteen years ago… That’s him on tenor sax in the accompanying photo. He’s retired now and just comes back once in awhile, but his colleagues carry it on. The 230 Jones Street, Local Six Literary Jazz Band is his concoction. Now it features read players Ray Loeckle and Jerry Logas on the front line, along with long-time rhythm section players Glen Deardorff on guitar, Dean Reilly on bass and Tony Johnson on drums. Through the years, Chuck’s band has included bassist Don Prell, guitarist Scott Foster (pictured here), reed player/arranger Bill Perkins, vocalist Dorothy Lefkovits, and a host of other wonderful players rotating through. The pool of jazz players in the Bay Area is rich, storied and immensely talented. We’re very fortunate that way. Support the music. Come out, empty your wallet, tell your friends. Enjoy the music!

San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck joins students from City College of San Francisco to celebrate the new issue of “Forum” magazine – CCSF’s literary and arts journal, published twice each year. Music will be provided by the CCSF Jazz Musicians Club.

We’re pleased and proud tonight to present San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck as a featured reader in our ongoing bimonthly poetry series, sharing the podium and spotlight with her colleague and friend, Jerry Ferraz. An open mic, hosted by Jerry, will follow. This dual feature/open mic format seems particularly fitting, as Kim, named San Francisco’s seventh Poet Laureate this past June, immediately characterized herself “laureate of the open mics.”  At Bird & Beckett, poets have long gathered to express their artfully constructed ideas, preoccupations and visions a few poems at a time to an engaged and receptive audience. It’s human communication and art in a vital form. Jerry and Kim have a longstanding friendship. They grew up as neighbors in Eureka Valley, though Kim is younger by a decade or more. From the beginning of the long process that led to her appointment to succeed the City’s sixth laureate,…

And here we are at the end of a beautiful ride. Come be a part of it. On this third Sunday in December, Pianist Grant Levin collaborates in a trio date with bassist Doug Stuart and drummer Jeff Minnieweather to finish out seven months of duo, trio and quartet work! 2, 3, 4… Count it off with Grant Levin!

One of the most delightful dates we’ve hosted at the bookshop was just this last October, when Friends of Old Puppy played from their eclectic bag of tunes. By popular demand, here they come again! Just the thing for a Sunday afternoon in the midst of the holiday maddness. Steven Strauss, ukulele Greg Pratt, guitar Ed Johnson, washtub bass Cynthia Wilson, drums      

Denise Perrier is known for her elegant contralto, for her phrasing and swing, for her unparalleled interpretation of tunes drawn from the “Great American Songbook” — the timeless popular music that poured out of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and the little offices and garrets of songwriters across the land from the teens and ’20s through the 1950s. Her place among the top rank of San Francisco’s jazz vocalists is unquestioned. And fortunately for us, her affection for the Bird & Beckett stage and audience brings her on occasion out to Glen Park, to our intimate room with 35 seats and space for a dozen more avid standing room guests… BYOB, if you know what’s good for you! Tonight, Denise performs with the consummate musicians Jerry Logas (baritone sax), Grant Levin (piano), Joe McKinley (bass) and Jack Dorsey (drums).

Saxophonist Rob Sudduth — whose credits include work with everyone from Norah Jones to Huey Lewis (a lot of work with Huey Lewis) to Ben Goldberg and Graham Connah — joins guitarist Scott Foster, bassist Dan Seamans and drummer Tom Hassett.          

An early music celebration of Christmas, with a joyous nod to the swinging 1960s. Vocals and instrumental performances on lute and harp by Doris Williams, a valued musician on the Bay Area early music scene since the late 1980s. Doris is joined on the program by  viola da gamba player Kit Robberson and classical guitarist Steve Stein. Ring in your season with Bach, Mozart and Christmas carols classic and new — even some jazzy Nina Simone Christmas ballads! Bring your own eggnog!