Richard Sears is a highly regarded and well traveled young pianist and composer.  Raised in Palo Alto and having lived and worked for a significant stretch in Los Angeles, he’s now Brooklyn based, where he has made a solid name for himself.   His group for this engagement includes fine musicians indeed: Patrick Wolff, tenor sax John Wiitala, bass Michael Davis, drums. Sears and Davis, who is also based in Brooklyn, grew up together playing music in and around San Jose. Of Michael, Richard says he’s “one of the most original drummers I’ve played with.” As for Patrick and John, both are at the very top echelon of jazz musicians working in the Bay Area today. The quartet will feature many of Sears’ original compositions as well as redefining a number of jazz standards. Their date at Bird & Beckett will conclude a three-night swing though three of the region’s…

The Dave Len Scott Quartet: Dave Scott trumpet Scott Foster, guitarDaniel Fabricant bassSurya Prakasha drumscelebrate the release of their new cd, “Blessed Mix.” The Dave Len Scott Quartet performs regularly at the Calvary Methodist Church on Fillmore Street, as well as at festivals and venues up and down the coast.  Dave also works with numerous local ensembles (The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, Brass Monkey Brass Band, The Glide Change Band, The Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, The Realistic Orchestra, The Pacific Mambo Orchestra, the Santa Rosa Symphony Orchestra and many others). He is also the founder and leader of TRUMPETSUPERGROUP and has been on tour and/or recorded with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, Rosemary Clooney, the Glenn Miller Orchestra (as lead trumpet and featured soloist), Big Kahuna and the Copa Cat Pack, Michael Feinstein, Toto and Boz Scaggs.  He’s a consummate player and composer, and has a deep history with the members of…

Joe Goldmark is the pedal steel king of San Francisco, and his band the Seducers just won’t quit. Mitch Polzak, the loquacious guitar wizard Mayor of Port Costa, and honey-voiced bassist Eddie Kendrick share the vocal honors, with special guest Paul Revelli on drums.  It doesn’t stop there! Henry & Kathleen Salvia join the band tonight on piano and vocal. Joe says, “Eddie will be singing Merle Haggard tunes exclusively this Sunday night, and I’m sure Mitch will kick in a few Hag tunes as well.  So bring your requests and we’ll let ‘er rip.” Every second Saturday, you’ll discover the Seducers making their way into your simple hearts. Why resist? See you down here at Bird & Beckett, when the moon is high and the coyotes howl and the cats in the canyon fear for their lives. 7:30-10 pm, $10 helps us pay the band. Merle Haggard, RIP!

Sukhawat Ali Khan is a singer and harmonium player expert in Qawwali (sufi devotional music) as well as the Pakistani/North Indian classical music of the Sham Chaurasi gharana. He is also a strong proponent of a modern, energized world music fusion that merges the danceable club sounds of many global cultural capitals. Truly, his sensibility embodies some of what we intended in calling our concert series “which way west?” and we’re proud to have presented him several times on the Bird & Beckett stage over the years. Sukhawat was attracted to music at an early age and began studying the harmonium at seven. At ten, he and his brother Shafqat Ali Khan were singing on a local radio station in Lahore, Pakistan, beginning a career that found him performing internationally. Eventually, he settled in the San Francisco Bay area, where he began to teach Indian classical music. In 1998, he…

Fred Martin has devoted the last twenty years to research on Abraham Lincoln and served two terms as President of The Abraham Lincoln Institute in Washington, D.C. His research has been conducted at the Library of Congress, the National Archibves, state historical societies, archieves and libraries across the nation. His book Abraham Lincoln’s Path to Reelection in 1864: Our Greatest Victory (self-published, 2013) is a culminating work on one aspect of that research, timely in this presidential election year. Martin’s career included work for the Associated Press, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and Bank of America, from which he retired in 1993 as Senior Vice President & Director of Government Relations. He lives in San Francisco, and is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies. Pictured here: Lincoln’s 1864 Inaugural Address  

Reed player Noel Jewkes is featured at jazz club! when pianist Grant Levin leads his quartet through two sets of classic and contemporary small combo repertoire.  Bassist Chris Amberger and drummer Malachi Whitson keep the pulse strong! jazz club! when lights are low… every Saturday night at Bird & Beckett, 7:30-10 pm.  Grant leads the band every second Saturday night. Duo! every 2nd & 4th Saturday afternoon, 2-4 pm, when Grant Levin invites a duo partner to the stage for two sets of lovely interplay. This week: bassist Chris Amberger shares the honors. Grant says he ‘s probably played with Chris more often than any other single musician! Their rapport is huge and their story goes back quite a ways.  Chris’s own career in jazz is much longer and wonderfully storied. He moved to Oakland as a kid with his mom, learning directly from great players of the 1960s, was present at the…

Noah Schenker, one of San Francisco’s premier bassists, fields a quartet featuring some of the Bay Area’s finest jazz musicians — guitarist Jack Riordan, pianist Adam Shulman and drummer Jon Arkin — keeping the jazz flame burning at San Francisco’s longest running weekly jazz party.  Never a missed Friday since late 2002, and still going strong! In no small tribute to the Bird & Beckett audience, San Francisco’s top jazz musicians are always happy to play for you here. Come with some dough to help us reward them for their efforts! Not even our musicians are immune to the high cost of living in the Bay Area, and well deserve your support. In turn, they’ll reward you with very fine music bursting with creativity and sheer talent.

Mississippi delta blues by a master guitarist fronting a terrific band.  Come celebrate the release of Bill’s new cd, “Parade.” A reviewer for the German publication “Blues News” had this to say this time last year:  “I hear Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb’s montone bass and Junior Kimbroughs Mississippi Juke Joint blues in Phillippe’s playing.”

Bird & Beckett started in business in May of 1999… and in October of 2002, 13+ years ago, we started presenting live jazz every single Friday evening after work. We’re still doing it, and more… but every so often the necktie gets a little tight — you all know how it is… So, on Friday, October 30th, 2015 we called on the founders of our jazz programming — Chuck Peterson, Don Prell, Scott Foster and Dorothy Lefkovitz — to entertain you while you reached into your wallets to throw a little money our way so we could throw it to the banks! For a post-event wrap-up, read on beneath the picture below!  The view from Halloween: The benefit we had last night with Dorothy, Chuck, Don & Scott, plus Rick Elmore and Omar Aran, was a terrific success.  $1,256 was contributed to the nonprofit, and the bookstore raised another $3,982. (Coincidentally,…

Please attend an informational meeting at Bird & Beckett with Amy Farah Weiss of the Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge She will address: •  what can be done to achieve secure sleep, hygienic toileting and services for San Francisco’s unhoused neighbors •  the innovations already being put into play •  the public policies that can make a difference. 7,000 people live on the streets in this wealthy city. A recent survey found that among its respondents: 80% were living with untreated psychological disabilities 70% were people living with physical disabilities. 60% became houseless after displacement from long-time homes and neighborhoods 60% were women ages 24-40 30% were people of color 30% were men 10% were trans and non-gender-conforming Become better informed. Add your imagination and energies to the effort. Lend your influence on the behalf of our unhoused neighbors. Follow the Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge on facebook at this link.  

Gerard Sarnat reads from Melting the Ice King, his fourth collection of poems; over 75 of these poems have been published in various magazines. His first was Homeless Chronicles: From Abraham to Burning Man (2010). He has been a professor at Stanford Medical School and has built and staffed clinics for the marginalized and homeless. For more info, see gerardsarnat.com. Keith Ekiss is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford University, was a Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford from 2005 to 2007 and has had residencies at the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley Writers’ Conferences, Santa Fe Art Institute, Millay Colony for the Arts and the Petrified Forest National Park. His poems and translations have appeared in numerous journals, and his creative nonfiction has been anthologized in Permanent Vacation: Living and Working in Our National Parks (Bona Fide Books, 2011). He is the translator of Eunice Odio’s The Fire’s…

  The GG Amos Band with Greg Sankovich on keyboards and Randy Odell on drums takes the stage this Sunday in our Canyon Moonlight series… Guitarist / Vocalist GG Amos is an artist in the West Coast Blues tradition, raised in Sacramento and now based in San Francisco. She’s honed her craft as a songwriter and entertainer utilizing the soul, jazz, funk and latin elements that make west coast blues what it is. For the past 26 years GG has earned a reputation as a riveting performer with a distinctive, expressive guitar style and an emotionally charged fluid voice…always emphasizing soulful communication with her audience. Her guitar influences include Carlos Santana, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, Magic Sam, Kenny Burrell and Pat Metheny. As a vocalist, her influences have been many but says she learned more about expression, timing and phrasing from the great Louis Armstrong than any other singer. GG’s original…