Michael Parsons is back! For a minute at least. And Bird & Beckett’s got him! Pianist Michael Parsons got our “jazz club” series rolling back in July 2014, then went and fell in love, moved to Paris, and married the lovely Siham! A French work visa followed, and time rolls on as Michael makes the rounds of the Paris jazz spots… ’til the day Michael & Siham move back to San Francisco for good. Michael and Siham are in town on holiday, and Michael  is gigging in all the old haunts while they’re here. (The two are also showcasing their rock trio — “Of the Goldmine” — while they’re in town: get over to Noise – Balboa at 35th – Sunday afternoon to witness that!) At Bird & Beckett, Michael’s quartet tonight will feature Danny Brown on tenor sax; Ricardo Diaz on bass; and Andre Sumelius on drums. Andre, Finnish by…

Soul September! Vocalist Derek Evans is featured with Todd Swenson’s “This Side Up.” Willie Riser, bass; Larry Vann, drums.

The art of the trio… Grant Levin, piano Joe McKinley, bass Rick Rivera, drums

Al Molina, trumpet and flugelhorn; Al Bent, trombone; Tod Dickow, sax; Larry Chinn, piano; Fred Randolph, bass; Vince Lateano, drums. Al Molina is a San Francisco native, born in 1935 to a musical family, who first made his mark on the local jazz scene in the early 1960s. His first appearance on record was in the 1966 Crestview Records release “Jazz from San Francisco,” and in 1983 he was named Best Jazz Trumpet in San Francisco by the Bay Area Jazz Society. Along the way, he has released three records as a leader, most recently “Amigos Todos” in 2003. He has toured internationally twice and appeared at the Monterey, Russian River and San Jose Jazz Festivals. Al’s sextet has been together for a number of years, and performs monthly at the Seven Mile House on Bayshore at Geneva, where Al practically created what has come to be regarded one of…

In the early 1950s, Don Prell was deep in the scene where a whole school & industry of “west coast jazz” was being created. He spent copious amounts of time playing and hanging at venues like Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach and the Haig in downtown L.A., just two of many clubs where the musicians cooked up tunes with intricate harmonies and rhythms in a cool mode that drew eager listeners to the music — though hard bop was equally entrenched in the set lists. At the Lighthouse, twelve-hour Sunday sessions that ran 2 pm to 2 am packed the place and put the club on the map, and the house band went through several iterations, first with major players from LA’s Central Avenue scene including Teddy Edwards, Hampton Hawes and Sonny Criss, black jazzmen eventually harassed out of town by the local authorities. White musicians were more easily…

Desperate and dazed by the agony of sleepless nights and endless days of ill-conceived parenthood,           caught in a trap, I can’t walk out, because I’ve got two children, baby… three gorgeous women with sparkling shades hiding tired eyes           too tired for my life, I’m too tired for my life, life’s going to kill me… sit perched on the wall of a neighborhood sandpit… Floppy bags of toys, diapers and sippy cups spill unnoticed at their feet, the children unseen, unheard, just screaming! screaming! somewhere behind some plastic playstructure… They recognize themselves in each other, trade weary stories, and form, first, a bond… and then…  a band! And miraculously there, in the night, gleams the neon of your favorite dive… El Rio… and Los Train Wreck waiting to TAKE THEM THERE!   To glam… to glory… to their own eponymous cocktail! Where they sing for…