Scott Barnhill, based in the South Bay, is a towering talent on the tenor sax with four decades in the business, and is a key player in the Bay Area. He hails from an important family in Bay Area jazz — his mother, Louise DeLucchi, is a jazz singer, and his late father, the drummer Buddy Barnhill, hit the jazz scene in the 1950s, playing at the Purple Onion in North Beach, the St. Francis Hotel’s Starlight Room and Basin Street West, beginning a high level professional career that lasted six decades.

Moving beyond the familiar accounts of politics and the achievements of celebrity engineers and designers, Building the Golden Gate Bridge is the first book to primarily feature the voices of the workers themselves. This is the story of survivors who vividly recall the hardships, hazards, and victories of constructing the landmark span during the Great Depression. Labor historian Harvey Schwartz has compiled oral histories of nine workers who helped build the celebrated bridge. Their powerful recollections chronicle the technical details of construction, the grueling physical conditions they endured, the small pleasures they enjoyed, and the gruesome accidents some workers suffered. The result is an evocation of working-class life and culture in a bygone era. Most of the bridge builders were men of European descent, many of them the sons of immigrants. Schwartz also interviewed women: two nurses who cared for the injured and tolerated their antics, the wife of one 1930s…

Misisipi Mike gathers a few close personal friends to give a nod to Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac. Ken Owen reads Kerouac’s ideas on spontaneous prose, bits of “October in the Railroad Earth” and some Kerouac haiku, with the inestimable Henry Salvia on piano. Plus Dylan’s poem for Woody and a couple of Guthrie’s tunes by Mike hiself, and Guthrie tunes and originals by Mokai, Tom Heyman and Brian Bellknap.

Four old pros create young jazz! These musicians are up to the task. They’re superbly attuned to each other — a quality that doesn’t necessarily come without great effort backed with solid skill and deep experience. Jim Grantham’s quartet dates here have always started with a sound of surprise that can come as a shock to the unexpecting, as his colleagues hit hard and free to get their ears open and their musical intellects in sync.  Two solid sets proceed from there:  jazz classics from the bop, cool and hard bop eras, tunes by moderns like Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson, experimental and free form numbers, originals by the band members. Pianist David Udolf, a highly regarded first call pianist, is the newest cog in the hand-built machine that leader Jim Grantham has crafted.  Bassist Jeff Neighbor and drummer Jack Dorsey have worked in this small group format with Jim for…

Smith Dobson, alto saxophone, leads a fine quartet featuring Keith Saunders, piano; John Wiitala, bass; and Evan Hughes, drums. Smith has been a leading figure in the young Bay Area jazz scene for a decade or more, equally acclaimed on sax, vibes and drums. He leads a quartet at Bird & Beckett the first Saturday of each month, drawing on the finest players the local scene can offer.

The indigenous people of the Haida Gwaii, an archipelago of islands off the coast of what is now British Columbia, date back 17,000 years and to this day retain a rich vein of stories — mythopoeic gems, as Walker Brents III would have it. This Sunday afternoon, Walker will tell a few of their stories, and will go into some of the implications and associations they provoke. Walker is a fascinating storyteller, a unique and original thinker — one of the truly talented people we at Bird & Beckett are proud to be able to present on a regular basis.  He gives a talk here on the last Sunday of each month, except in the summer when he and his wife traverse a territory that ranges from the Pacific Northwest to the llano estacado of west Texas.  Walker and his talks are well worth an hour of your time on…

Saxophonist Matt Zebley joins guitarist Luke Westbrook and bassist Don Prell in drummer Vinnie Rodriguez’ quartet this Saturday, for two sets of straight ahead jazz and bebop. Matt Zebley released his first solo CD, “Live at Moondog” in 1999, and over the years has collaborated with the likes of Tony Bennett, Dave Brubeck, Wynton Marsalis, Yusef Lateef, Bobby McFerrin and Wayne Shorter. Since 1999, Matt has performed with the rock and roll big band Brian Setzer Orchestra, and received a Grammy (Best Instrumental) for his work on “Caravan” from their 2000 release entitled Vavoom. Dr. Zebley is Director of Jazz Studies at Diablo Valley College. Don Prell began his six-decade career in music in the mid-1950s, as a member of The Bud Shank Quartet, recording two albums with Shank – “The Bud Shank Quartet featuring Claude Williamson” (1956) and “Bud Shank on Tenor” (1957). Along the way, he put in 30 years…

Pianist Grant Levin continues a series of duo performances (taking place on the 2nd and 4th Sunday afternoon of each month), which has spawned fruitful collaborations with a number of bassists and percussionists. This afternoon, drummer Pepe Jacobo shares the stage with Grant.  Pepe received his Diploma in Music from the University of Costa Rica. He has studied with Stewart Mars, taken private classes with Antoni Saroni, Pete Magadini and many others. Pepe creates and performs original music on guitar and percussion.

Peter Sherburn-Zimmer was raised in Southie, in Boston, a slum kid. No one famous came from there, he had to admit to Gordon Cairney, lounging on a couch in Cairney’s Grolier Book Shop. Traveled an arc through mathematics to literature, sociology, philosophy and more to no bachelor’s degree ’til much later, at his wife’s urging, then a peripatetic life of teaching gigs in the humanities at all levels, a master’s, a Ph.D. in poetry and criticism at SUNY Rochester; San Francisco in ’67 and later, from ’93 to present. Three kids: a detailer in architecture, a fierce activist, a bartender turned liquor distributor driver trying to make a living… a poet who doesn’t write about his experience but whose experience can’t help but inform his poetry. A treasure for sure, and a sweet human being we’re pleased to know. Alexis Spencer-Byers is traveling into town for the reading. Raised in…

The GG Amos Trio with Greg Sankovich on keyboards and Randy Odell on drums are featured this week in a new Sunday night series we’re calling Canyon Moonlight Music, 7:30-10 pm each week. 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…

Special sneak preview of SFMusic Day 15’s Field Report:  Asian American Jazz Anthony Brown’s Ensemble featuring Genny Lim performing “1945: A Year of Infamy” plus a set by the Brown, Izu & Jordan Trio Today’s sneak preview performance at Bird & Beckett will include an opening set by the Anthony Brown-Mark Izu-Lewis Jordan Trio (original members of the 1980s progressive jazz quartet, UNITED FRONT) followed by Anthony Brown’s Ensemble featuring Genny Lim performing a distillation for quintet of “1945: A Year of Infamy” The full Asian American Orchestra performance of “1945: A Year of Infamy” will headline SFMusic Day 15 at Herbst Theater on Sunday 10/25 at 8 pm The Brown-Izu-Jordan Trio will be featured at 5:15 pm. http://www.sffcm.org/sfmusic-day/   1945: A Year of Infamy commemorates the 70th anniversary of the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the beginning of humankind’s ability to annihilate itself from the face of the earth. Dr. Anthony…

Pianist Duane Muziki Roberson’s distinct style and creative individuality have placed him among the most respected musicians in the Bay Area. It has been said, that “Muziki’s music and playing will move you at the very depths of your being.”  His breathtaking compositions are always characterized by the hippest of rhythms and the deepest elements of swing. “Muziki’s music and playing will move you at the very depths of your being.” Tonight at Bird & Beckett, Muziki will lead a quartet featuring Dr. James Bailey, saxophone; Pierre Archain, bass; and Alcide Marshall, drums.

Tonight, Scott has David Boyce on sax, Adam Gay on bass and Dan Foltz on drums to accompany him on an excursion through music associated with and composed by Joe Henderson, a tenor sax titan whose intelligence and soulfulness was evident in so many classic recordings and legendary performances.