New music for jazz sextet by the Lisa Mezzacappa Six, inspired by Italo Calvino’s stories on the history of the universe – developed in a series of salon performances at Bird & Beckett beginning tonight and concluding Saturday, November 3rd. Aaron Bennett, tenor saxJohn Finkbeiner, guitarMark Clifford, vibesTim Perkis, electronicsLisa Mezzacappa, bassJordan Glenn, drumsBookstore Residency & Work-in-Progress Salons4 Thursdays at 7:30pm April 19/May 24/July 5/Sept 13 $10 Suggested Donation Concert FinaleSaturday, Nov 3 at 7:30pm $20 cover chargeBay Area bassist and composer Lisa Mezzacappa visits with her sextet for a five-concert residency beginning April 19th and ending November 3rd, to develop a new suite of music inspired by Italo Calvino’s extraordinary “Cosmicomics” stories. Over a series of Thursday evening salons, Lisa and her colleagues will explore new music drawn from Calvino’s supremely imaginative play on incidents in the history of the universe and the invisible forces at work in the…

Randy Newman anyone? The Kinks? Whatever the Hillbilllies want to do!! C’mon out!    

Dineh man, editor, poet. Chickasaw woman, two-spirit, language warrior. Cherokee laureate. Who wouldn’t want to come to Bird & Beckett for that!? (Sorry, but airline problems have interfered with Jenny Davis’s travel plans, and she won’t be able to make the reading on Sunday! So Kim has recruited EK Keith to pinch hit! No tragedy, that! EK is a local hero, a wonderful poet and a deep soul! A teacher by day, a bohemian by nature, we all love EK!) The poems in Bojan Louis’s poetry collection, Currents, explore American identity and the powers of myth, faith, doubt, and the environment, and the music of these poems resonate with strains of the English, Spanish, and Diné languages. Louis, who has worked as a construction worker and electrician, moves fluently between the literal and symbolic dimensions of work, as he writes in the poem “Electricity”: “Any laborer gathered for a tear-out /…

Noel Jewkes, saxophone Grant Levin, piano Aaron Cohn, bass Mark Lee, drums Bird & Beckett’s Saturday night “jazz club” series kicked off in July of 2014 with a quartet led by the phenomenal young pianist Grant Levin and featuring veteran saxophonist Noel Jewkes. After nearly four years of consecutive Saturdays, we present these wonderful musicians once again this Saturday night, in two sets highlighted by a generous number of originals and arrangements by Mr. Jewkes!  Noel Jewkes has set the standard among San Francisco jazz saxophone players for decades, since moving here from Utah where he grew up in a musical family — playing Salt Lake City clubs and area resorts and traveling widely through the region with his uncle’s big band. Starting out here as a jazz player in the early 1960s, he didn’t shy away from the late 1960s rock and roll scene – playing in the all-girls-but-one…

Denise Perrier is celebrated from Havana to St. Petersburg and here at home for her elegant contralto, for her phrasing and swing, for her unparalleled interpretation of tunes drawn from the jazz canon and 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. Fortunately for us, her affection for the Bird & Beckett stage and audience brings her out to Glen Park, to our intimate room with 35 seats and space for a dozen more avid standing room guests… Tonight, pianist Grant Levin, bassist Ruth Davies and drummer Daria ‘Shani’ Johnson provide the rhythm section, and vocalist Larry Smith will sing a few tunes as well. Kim Nally & Jerry…

  Ritmojito features vocalist Sandra Aran, with Richard Nelson Hall on piano, Dean Muench on bass and Dan Foltz, drums. Superbly crafted songs with deep latin jazz grooves, salsa to ska to samba. This is a date you won’t want to miss!

Last chance this school year to catch the RJAM Jam! Students from local colleges and high schools hosted by the freshman class at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s brand new “Roots, Jazz & American Music” undergraduate degree program! They’ll be dispersing for the summer right after finals in May, but will come back in the fall — along with a brand new crop of brilliant young student musicians honing their skills for a career in jazz!

Two sets of high octane honky tonk from a supergroup that’s happy to call Bird & Beckett home every second Sunday. Joe Goldmark, pedal steel guitar Mitch Polzak, lead guitar and vocals Hank Maninger, bass guitar and vocals Kenny Owen, drums

The Chet Baker Project Revisited featuring Al Molina on trumpet & Dima on vocals Larry Chinn, piano; Ron Belcher, bass; Jim Zimmerman, drums Covering music associated with Chet Baker from his beginnings in the early 1950s to his death in 1988, this ensemble showcases through music and lyric an etching of the feeling and the aura of the times Post WWII – Korean War when romance and melancholia filled the air. Trumpeter Al Molina and Dima blend their two voices presenting a répertoire and style paying tribute to Chet Baker and his musical works. This quintet date is supported by Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund. $10-20 donation at the door requested; no tip jar!  

Three on a Match: The New, Improved Reading Series!         This round with Kim Addonizio, Paul Fericano and Peter Cherches Need a break from the insanity and anxiety of our times? Come join us at Bird & Beckett for an afternoon of reason, rascality and resistance. Join Bay Area favorites Kim Addonizio and Paul Fericano & Brooklyn native Peter Cherches as they serve up words spun like cotton candy on sticks of dynamite. Hosted by San Francisco’s own, the inimitable klipschutz. Come one, come all!

Sony Holland, in duo with guitarist and songwriter Jerry Holland, sings jazz standards, classic bossa novas, modern folk and originals from a collection of  songs she’s been compiling for years, delivering the material with vulnerability, confidence and cool passion, showcasing her love for great songwriters and their work. Released in 2017, Sony’s cd “Soft POWER” presents her considerable talents and chemistry with partner Jerry Holland, supported beautifully by bassist Dan Feiszli and drummer David Rokeach working in a home studio in El Cerrito to build uncluttered tracks around the duo’s intimate arrangements.  

  Al Molina, trumpet and flugelhorn Jerry Logas, flute and reeds Jeffrey Burr, guitar Dean Reilly, bass Vince Lateano, drums    

 Xxavier Edward Carter is an artist and writer from Dallas, Texas. His written work is heavily influenced by the poetry of Amiri Baraka, the artistic works of Young Hae Chang Heavy Industries, and a love for the plays of Shakespeare. In middle school you could catch him reading Aristotle’s Metaphysics one day, Anna Deavere Smith the next, and Bret Easton Ellis the next all with the same intensity. An early exposure to an eclectic array of music imparted a dynamic lyricism into Xxavier’s poetry. With this also came a consciousness of the diversity of realities people experience across the world and an interest in how people express themselves. Xxavier has shown artwork in England, Japan, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, and South Korea. Moving forward, Xxavier looks to find collaborators to translate his work into other languages while creating more audio, video, and performance works. Sun English, Jr. is a QTPOC (they/them),…