Heshima Mark Williams marks another year, and what better way to do it than to celebrate his birthday, just a little belatedly, with colleagues and friends on the bandstand at Bird & Beckett!  He’ll have Art Khu on piano and Alcide Marshall on drums, with horn players Gary Bean (trumpet) and David Ferrazares (tenor sax). Collectively, this is the Ways & Means Committee! Come out and join the party!

April is the cruelest month, and so… Jerry Ferraz is hosting a rent party for Bird & Beckett! It’s in his backyard out on Mission Street, a few blocks south of Cortland Call the bookshop at 415-586-3733 to RSVP & get the address   Saturday, May 21st – 1 pm to 7 pm It’s a benefit, so bring your checkbook! ~~Off site! Not at the bookshop! (see above)~~ Help the bookshop meet the bills! “No-host” bar, with proceeds to the bookshop, AND the bucket will be passed!   On the house… live jazz! plus Jerry’s famous chili, salad and garlic bread! Vince Lateano Trio    2:00-4:30pm with Jordan Samuels, guitar and Frank Tusa, bass   Jazz Jam Session   4:45-7:00 pm with The Vinnie Rodriguez Rhythm Section Neil Kelly, guitar – Adam Thompson, bass musicians bring your axes! POETS! BRING YOUR VOICES!

Bob Kenmotsu, tenor sax Scott Foster, guitar Adam Gay, bass Omar Aran, drums Guitarist Scott Foster, who leads a date at Bird & Beckett on the third Friday of each month, has assembled a quartet the way quartets are generally assembled: get a date booked and start calling around to see who’s available. Come the date, convene on the bandstand, find a quick consensus on the first tune, the tempo, maybe a few details about how to handle it, and let it rip.  Then spend the rest of the first set getting progressively more comfortable with each other, take a break, take it on through to the end. Maybe each has played with each, maybe not, it’s ok, you’re all used to it and find it pretty natural to be stimulated by it the process. Time telescopes, contracts; comfort zones are found and stepped in and out of; mistakes are…

Rosemary Manno has lived in San Francisco since 1983.   She grew up in Buffalo, New York and has lived in Paris whenever possible. She is a published poet, artist, world traveler, lover of foreign tongues, the natural world and revolutionary struggle and is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade. Her work has also appeared in numerous chapbooks, magazines and anthologies. Her forthcoming collection is entitled Marseille. Roderick Iverson is a poet, novelist and translator.  He speaks French German and Polish fluently and a number of other languages as well. He is one of the first writers to translate and publish the work of Georg Trakl in the United States. Recently he has toured France reading selections of his work with a group of other poets influenced by Beat poetry.  He presently lives and works in San Francisco. An open mic follows. Hosted by Jerry Ferraz

Wait!! Is Bird & Beckett a jazz venue? a rock-a-billy venue? Is it too early in the month for a jazz-a-billy date? Just what is jazz-a-billy anyway? Exploring that last timeless question, you may want to check out the article linked here and then consider this statement attributed to Jinx from a great San Jose Mercury article that ran in the paper a few days ago:   “My whole approach is similar to a jazz musician. I like when music happens at a certain moment in a song and it may never happen that way again. There’s a kind of adventure to that.” In the San Jose Merc article, Jinx goes on to say “One thing I like about rockabilly — anything you can play in a blues, jazz, swing, or country music context, you can put all of that stuff into rockabilly and it fits.” All true! And we’ve seen it get…

Paul Fericano founded the Stoogist movement and, besides being a terrific satirical poet, is the mind behind Yossarian Universal News Service (YU) (why not?). Ellaraine Lockie’s poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize eleven times. Art Beck’s Luxorius Opera Omnia, a Duet for Sitar and Trombone (Otis College, Seismicity Editions) was awarded the 2013 Northern California Book award for poetry in translation.

Catch Sylvia Cuenca leading a fabulous trio with Wil Blades on organ and Paul Bollenback on guitar, mid-way through a four date Bay Area run– Cafe Stritch in San Jose on Thursday and Friday, Bird & Beckett Saturday night, and Chez Hanny Sunday afternoon. Read E. “Doc” Smith’s BeyondChron article on the date here!     Click here to read up on Sylvia Click here to read up on Paul Bollenback Click here to read up on Wil Blades Frank Hanny always does a nice job of presenting bios of the players… you can read what he’s gathered here.  Hear the trio at Bird & Beckett Saturday night, and then hear them again Sunday afternoon at Frank’s place, Chez Hanny on Silver Avenue over in the Portola District, a hop, skip and a jump from Bird & Beckett.   www.chezhanny.com If you’re coming up from the South Bay, please do bring…

Join us for the San Francisco Launch Party for the anthology Cross Strokes, Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Saturday, May 14th from 2 to 4 pm. Readings by: Neeli Cherkovski Tim Donnelly Sharon Doubiago Patrick James Dunagan Bill Mohr Paul Vangelisti Maw Shein Win Plus readings of work by Francisco X. Alarcon, Jack Hirschman, and Lenore Kandel. check the facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/153599258375281/

                                          Aaron Cohn, bass           Gaea Schell, piano               Luke Westbrook, guitar jazz in the bookshop, every Friday night $10 per adult if you can wing it. don’t stay away for lack of funds. but if you’re good for it, the culture’s better off.

Every second Thursday, gather with a bookish batch of your neighbors to yak up the books… this month, it’s Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior… next month, God’s Hotel by Victoria Sweet… July, Some Luck by Jane Smiley. The folks love to see new faces, and to solicit their input on future books to read. So don’t be shy! Want to make yourself instantly popular? Bring a bottle of something or a snack. It’s been known to work before!

Two supremely talented young players go toe to toe for two sets of live duo jazz.  What a way to spend a little time on a San Francisco Saturday afternoon. Besides being an accomplished leader, Grant Levin is in high demand as a sideman for live and recorded gigs around the region. Likewise, Danny Brown makes any gig he plays a complete delight. One of the most natural young jazz players we’ve heard. All in all, this is certain to be a wonderful afternoon of music. Grant leads a duo session at Bird & Beckett on the 2nd and 4th Saturday afternoon of each month.  

 Live jazz lives in San Francisco! Sheldon Brown – Alto Saxophone Ben Goldberg – Clarinet John Shifflett – Bass Jason Lewis – Drums Thelonious Monk + Herbie Nichols + Originals! Sheldon writes: Ben and I have been making music together in a variety of groups for almost 25 years, as members of Clarinet Thing (led by Beth Custer and also featuring Harvey Wainapel), Darren Johnston Quintet, Touch and Go (led by Vijay Anderson) and Goldberg, Brown Anderson Trio, and, of course, many of Graham Connah’s amazing large ensembles. We’ll be playing music of Herbie Nichols and Thelonious Monk (two composers who have fascinated us for years), and a few originals of our own. We’ll be joined by two of our favorite rhythm section cohorts and all around great fellas, John Shifflett, on bass, and Jason Lewis on drums. Join us as this piano-less quartet tackles the music of two of…

Expect a generous portion of Lester  Young-inspired tenor sax playing from one of the very best sax players in the Bay Area, when Smith Dobson V is joined by drummer Tony Johnson, bassist Miles Wick & pianist Adam Shulman!  

Al Molina, trumpet Jerry Logas, sax and clarinet Don Prell, bass Vinnie Rodriguez, drums Jazz history right here folks! Bebop, lovely standards, a little trad… bass-sax-drums - from “Ornithology” to “Doxy” — from “For All We Know” to “St. James Infirmary.” Bassist Don Prell is about 85 and he shows no sign of flagging. None that we believe anyway. His roots are in the West Coast jazz realm of SoCal in the 1950s, and no one plays with more intensity. Al Molina is a special guest on the date– San Francisco-born (1935), Al grew up in a musical family and dove into jazz early and permanently. He’s got a beautiful style, lyrical and fiery at once. Jerry Logas, on sax, has a good fifty years of jazz performance under his belt, we’d guess, and no one plays a sweeter clarinet or a more soulful tenor sax. Bari too. He’s nowhere happier…