Avotcja, named 2015 Jazz Hero by the Bay Area Chapter of the Jazz Journalists Association last July, is a jazz musician with deep roots, a riveting poet, an imaginative and ruminative prose writer, a pioneer, an individualist, a fierce champion of her fellow musicians, poets and artists.  She leads the group named Best Jazz Group of the Year in 2005 and 2010 by the Bay Area Blues Hall of Fame, Modúpue (“graditude”) — a flexible ensemble with anywhere from four to fourteen musicians, a company that includes some of the Bay Area’s very best.  This Sunday afternoon at Bird & Beckett, Avotcja will be joined by pianist Jon Jang, reed player Francis Wong and bassist Heshima Mark Williams — stellar musicians all with major careers and reputations in the music. Read more about Avotcja and Modúpue on her site at http://www.avotcja.org/ BRING IN THE NEW YEAR RIGHT WITH THE ANNUAL HEALING EVENING OF…

Saturday, January 2nd at Bird & Beckett 7:30-10:00 pm THE SMITH DOBSON QUARTET originals and chestnuts Richard Sears, piano Doug Stuart, bass Tim Angulo, drums jazz club!  when lights are low $10 cover

Count on bassist Don Prell and his confreres to keep the jazz ball rolling at Bird & Beckett right into 2016!  We’ve never missed a Friday jazz date since the series began back in late 2002, so we’re well into our 14th year… nearly 700 consecutive Fridays and counting! Don got his start in LA in the early 1950s, and now leads the boppish unit he calls the SeaBop Ensemble.  They hold forth every Tuesday night down at the Bayview Boat Club on Terry Francoise Blvd. near the ballpark, and on the 1st Friday of each month they entertain the Bird & Beckett audience.  Tonight, he’s got stalwarts Jerry Logas on sax, Ray Scott on guitar and Vinnie Rodriguez on drums — Bird & Beckett favorites all.  Live jazz at Bird & Beckett every Friday from 5:30-8:00.  Pay what you can, but a ten-spot per adult is what it really…

It’s a lovely and low key thing, with two veteran jazz guitarists in solo and duo combination, passing a sweet Sunday afternoon at the end of the year, with you in their company.

Charles Thomas on bass and Omar Aran on drums join pianist Grant Levin for two sets of live jazz in San Francisco’s southernmost and foremost outpost of jazz and literary culture! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Heshima Mark Williams presents The Jazzling Twintet at Bird & Beckett’s Saturday night jazz club… Vivian Warkentin, violin, is Assistant Concertmaster of Oakland Symphony, and an active freelancer. She’s studied jazz with David Balakrishnan.  Her credits include string section work withBurt Bacharach, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett, Sara Vaughn, Doc Severinsen, Chris Botti,Smokey Robinson, George Benson, Henry Mancini, and also film scoring at Skywalker Ranch and other local studios. Michael McCarthy, guitar, played bass with the proto-punk-country band Orgasm Spasm, and studied jazz guitar with Rich Parker, Jeffrey Burr, Alan Klein, Steve Erquiga, and Brian Pardo.  He’s played guitar with the Berkeley Jazz School Adult Big Band, and also leads a music group for the developmentally disabled called All Together Now. Wanda Warkentin, cello, is a member of the Berkeley and Santa Rosa Symphonies, and an active freelancer. She’s played Principal cello with Santa Rosa Symphony and Midsummer Mozart Festival, soloed with the tango orchestra SF Camerata, and…

Trumpeter Darren Johnston makes his Bird & Beckett debut, with Noah Schenker on bass and Omar Aran on drums.  Guitarist Scott Foster leads the date, as he does every third Friday of the month. Since settling in San Francisco in 1997, Canada-born trumpeter/composer/songwriter Darren Johnston has collaborated and recorded with an extremely diverse cross-section of artists. Johnston is a first-call instrumentalist with a gorgeous tone and sublime musicianship in a dizzying array of genres, from work with straight-ahead jazz luminaries such as bassist/composer Marcus Shelby, to experimental icons like ROVA, Fred Frith and Myra Melford, rising star singer/songwriter Meklit Hadero, or with traditional Balkan brass band giants Brass Menazeri. As a bandleader and composer he has made his mark with the award-winning Nice Guy Trio, The Darren Johnston Quintet, the category defying Broken Shadows Family Band, and more. His interests span composing instrumental music, writing songs, and performing all styles…

The Seducers play every Second Sunday in Bird & Beckett’s weekly “Canyon Moonlight Music” series.  The band features guitarist and vocalist Mitch Polzak, pedal steel guitarist Joe Goldmark, singer and bassist Eddie Kendrick and drummer Kenny Owen. Classic country music for a moonlit November night hard by Glen Canyon, where the coyotes howl and the cats fear for their lives. 7:30-10 pm. $10 donation requested.

Join us for our Surf-a-billy Swing Time Dance Party finale!  After a swingin’ 14-month run, who better to wrap it up, tie a ribbon ’round it, and place it under your tree than the dynamo that started it off! Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Soultet featuring Jules Broussard and Danny Armstrong will thrill you and set you shimmying right into Christmas! Lavay has been the toast of the town since 1989.  With the fabulous band that is the Red Hot Skillet Lickers, she’s been a star attraction at Dizzy’s in New York, Sculler’s in Boston, The Green Mill in Chicago, The Dakota in Minneapolis, Jazz Alley in Seattle and The Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis. When not touring, the Skillet Lickers regularly pack them in at Biscuits & Blues, The Cafe du Nord, The Club Deluxe, Ashkenaz, Rancho Nicasio and any number of other hot spots around the Bay. Thousands of…

Duo at 4:00 with Chris Amberger on bass Quartet at 7:30, with Howard Wiley, sax; Chris Amberger, bass and Hamir Atwal, drums

Pianist Don Alberts and bassist Aaron Cohn join trombonist Pilorz for two sets testing the margins where bebop and hard bop constructions encounter harmonic concepts rife with possibility — all in the party atmosphere that we know and love on Friday evenings in San Francisco’s premier & southernmost outpost of literature and jazz — Bird & Beckett Books: setting the pace in Glen Park since 1999! Three generations of jazz musicians find their way to common ground.