Nancy Calef is best known in North Beach and internationally as a painter–for good reason, witness the canvas above! She’s also a songwriter and singer and clearly much more. Jerry Ferraz is a modern troubadour, uncanny in his channeling of a tradition that reaches back centuries and across continents. He’s also been the host of our bi-monthly poetry sessions since the inception of the store back before the turn of the century. Nancy and Jerry will both be devoting their time on the Bird & Beckett stage tonight to their songs. An open mic will follow for poets, songwriters and singers alike. We have a good piano, and you’re free to put it to good use if that’s your inclination. The culture thanks you. We thank you. See you Monday night! check this link for more info on Nancy and her book, Peoplescapes: My Story from Purging to Painting  

Nova Jazz is Daniel Heffez, saxophone Bob Brumbeloe, guitar Ollie Dudek, bass Omar Aran, drums This afternoon they’re joined by some of our favorite poets — Jennifer Barone, Ingrid Kerr, Pablo Rosales and James Ellis — for a rich feast of music and the word! Visit this link to listen to the Nova Jazz album and for more information on the band. http://novajazzonline.com/music    

Larry Dunlap, piano Chuck Bennett, bass Akira Tana, drums feat. Bobbe Norris, vocal $15 cover charge. Larry Dunlap and Bobbe Norris have been performing together since the late 1970s (and have been married since about the same time).  Born in the Bay Area, Bobbe was sitting in at the Fillmore District’s Bop City in the 1950s while still a teen and, “discovered” by John Hammond of Columbia Records, began to build a strong reputation and career in New York in the ’60s before leaving the business and heading back west.  Her partnership with Larry brought her back to the mic, and together they’ve been a strong draw in clubs, cabarets and concert halls for decades. Larry entered the jazz business in Portland, playing with Leroy Vinnegar and Ralph Towner, before coming down to the Bay Area.  Beginning in about 1980, he toured for nearly three decades with Cleo Laine and John Dankworth.  Along the way, he has also performed with Ernestine…

Henry Hung, trumpet; Grant Levin, piano; Josh Tower, bass; Omar Aran, drums. jazz at bird & beckett wouldn’t be what it is without the musicians who kicked it into gear and kept it going for years! R.I.P,  Jimmy! Jimmy Ryan passed away in July 2015 and will always be missed! Henry Hung will make sure we don’t miss the bebop! R.I.P, Jimmy!!!

Joe Cunningham, Christopher Gray and J. Raoul Brody sing songs of ramshackle urban disjuncture. Cheerfully enough! It all started with their fixation on the Kinks’ album, “Muswell Hillbillies,” memorably evoked in performances at Bird & Beckett and other fine venues a year or so ago… but there’s plenty more modern desolation to feed the preoccupations of the Potrero Hillbillies, so it’s time for another show. (Also, it’s transcendent, which can’t really go out of style, can it?) Joe Cunningham, a native of Flint, Michigan, is thrilled to think that his suite of songs set in Flint, “Michigan Winter,” will need no more introduction than the recent blizzard of international news items. Lucky enough to be a member of the Potrero Hillbillies, Joe feels that Bird and Beckett is the perfect setting for the international debut of these songs betraying confidences about the lives of friends and family members too far…

Pianist Grant Levin leads duo, trio and quartet dates on the 2nd, 3rd & 4th Sundays of each month, respectively. Tonight, he’s collaborating with bassist Kash Killion in a duo, their third encounter in three months, building on the rapport built last October here at Bird & Beckett. This sequence will go down in the annals of Bird & Beckett jazz history!! $10 cover tonight.      

Eric Nakanishi – sax Matt Wong – piano Logan Kane – bass Ben Ring – drums All four musicians on today’s date were born within a year or two of each other and raised  in the East Bay or San Francisco, and all four are pursuing B.A.s in music and are about half-way through — Eric at Berklee College of Music, Matt at Manhattan School of Music, Logan and Ben both at USC. Eric Nakanishi, the leader on this date, was raised in Walnut Creek and became serious in his study of jazz saxophone from age 9. By his early teens, he was selected for school, district, county and other honor jazz bands/combos, receiving recognition and multiple awards for his playing ability. Through high school, he was a member of the SFJazz High School All-Stars Orchestra (three years) and Combo (one year) as well as the Berkeley Jazzschool Studio Band for two…

Carlos Suarez reads from his new collection of poems and short prose pieces. Carlos was born in Paraná, Argentina, in the province of Entre Ríos, though he traveled early and widely over a span of many decades and has for some years lived in San Francisco. He has been a photojournalist, a cultural anthropologist, a translator from and to Spanish, Italian, English, and more. He is a philosopher, a social critic, a raconteur, and writes stories, film reviews and essays, and poetry. His writing is perhaps the best we’ve been privileged to read.

The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents… The Graham Bruce Quintet Graham Bruce – trumpet Madaline Duran – tenor sax Grant Levin – piano Fred Randolph – bass Andy Dillard – drums Graham Bruce, with the music genes of his father (a semi-pro pianist), played drums as a child– until he inherited his mom’s father’s trumpet. Through various embouchure difficulties he kept with it through Berklee and several breakthrough experiences: playing with giants like George Coleman, Kurt Lightsey and, on a couple S.F. gigs, Joe Henderson; seven nights a week with Jules Broussard; and fronting his own Bay Area bands, Bobtek, Octagon and Palindrome (with bassist Chris Amberger). Graham picked up the acoustic bass in 1990 and was quickly doubling on that, and as a writer/arranger, he gradually developed his keyboard abilities as well. His book of original compositions and arrangements contains hundreds of tunes. He was recently heard at Bird &…

Don Prell leads the charge… with Al Molina on trumpet and Jerry Logas on reeds, they’re a sure bet! Kris Gustafson’s on the skins and all bodes well. Come and join San Francisco’s longest running weekly neighborhood jazz party — jazz in the bookshop every Friday evening, 5:30-8:00 pm. But BYOB! The State in its wisdom forbids us from offering you anything alcoholic, but they haven’t yet decreed that you can’t take care of your own desires in that realm! We’ll supply the corkscrew and such. Bebop ’til you drop! Or ’til you go out for dinner, anyway… Tip the musicians here first!

A 5-piece group led by Chicago native Ray Skjelbred, this band includes Skjelbred on piano, Kim Cusack on clarinet, Katie Cavera on guitar, Clint Baker on bass and Jeff Hamilton on drums. $20 cover charge. All but Hamilton share the vocal duties in this band, and do so with elan! The Cubs are on a mini-Bay Area tour they typically make each July, and this is their only San Francisco public appearance on the trip, though you can catch Ray solo at Pier 23 on Monday the 11th. Skjelbred is down from Seattle, while Cusak is in from Chicago and Cavera is up from L.A. Baker and Hamilton both live in the Bay Area. (Don’t fail to mark your calendar now for September 23rd, when drummer Jeff Hamilton will be back, but this time in the piano chair with Clint Baker moving to trumpet, joined by Robert Young on reeds.)…

Grant Levin, piano Chris Amberger, bass Rodney Ruckus, drums Grant Levin’s three-Sundays-a-month residency at Bird & Beckett is into its second month, and will roll through the end of the year. Don’t miss a chance to hear one of San Francisco’s most remarkably talented jazz pianists in an intimate setting where he is completely at home. Chris Amberger is in many ways one of Grant’s profound mentors, and is a joy to hear, always. And then there’s Rodney Ruckus, just two months since his arrival from Miami. Duos every second Sunday, trios every third, quartets every fourth… …2, 3, 4! $15 cover tonight.