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…

Ron Sauer Ron Sauer is a native New Yorker and a leading light of the North Beach art and poetry scene, known for trenchant social satires and poignant love poems and for translations of Baudelaire, Aloysius Betrand, and Jacques Prevert. A troubadour of urban America, Sauer is a musician, collagist, art collector, teacher of film history and literature, polymath critic, and compulsive talker. The only formal education he admits to is a summa cum laude in Horizontal Angelology. He likes to spend his free time playing haberdasher to the happily impoverished. He is the co-founder, with artist Rebecca Peters, of Fly-By-Night Productions, which stages art exhibitions, and publishes Off the Cuff Press broadside editions of new poetry and prose. Dan De Vries Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dan De Vries has lived in San Francisco since ’91. Before then, Denver, Laramie, Vancouver, Ann Arbor, and periodically up and down the…

Get in with the In Crowd Pianist Eric Shifrin & Friends Tom Griesser, sax; Paul Smith, bass; Randy Odell, drums Sunday, May 1st – 7:30-10:00 pm No cover charge

Marianna August first really indulged her life-long affection for music and singing through eight years of classical vocal training, and she’s continued her vocal studies ever since, though she’s used that training in recent years in an embrace of the Broadway sounds of musical theater and cabaret, specializing now in standards of the 1930s and 1940s. Marianna continues vocal training privately with the American Conservatory Theater and she teaches voice as well. She performs in clubs and restaurants around the Bay Area, in the company of such fine musicians as Benny Watson, Noel Jewkes and Larry Vuckovich. Marianna is also a member of the Bread & Roses charitable organization, and frequently takes a band of fine, seasoned musicians she calls her “Jazz Pals” to perform in senior residences, convalescent facilities and the like.  The late Jim Rothermel, her life partner and mentor of eleven years and a clarinet and saxophone…

Tonight, Bird & Beckett’s Saturday night jazz club!  partners with the jazz presenting organization “Jazz in the Neighborhood” to bring you two sets of jazz by The  Mario Guarneri Quartet featuring Mario Guarneri, trumpet Randy Vincent, guitar John Wiitala, bass Akira Tana, drums $5-$20 sliding scale Trumpeter Mario Guarneri brings to his performances a fresh creative voice, amazing technical ease, and an intense desire to touch people with his music. His career has encompassed everything from playing with Louis Armstrong at the age of 13 to fifteen seasons with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Guarneri has recorded solo albums on the Crystal and Nonesuch labels, played principal trumpet with the LA Chamber Orchestra for ten seasons, and appeared on over 300 TV and motion picture soundtracks, most notably as soloist on Godfather III. Since his return to the Bay Area, where he was born and raised, Mario has concentrated his energies on the Guarneri Jazz Quartet. He teaches trumpet and…