Elizabeth Block, Katia Noyes, Liz Harvey & Alison Owings join forces in a reading/performance of “unimaginable spaces, far off places, and audience participation interations.” The Gamut! – a Litquake event Thursday, October 15th, 7-9pm, Bird & Beckett hosts Elizabeth Block, Katia Noyes, Liz Harvey and Alison Owings in a Litquake reading they’re calling “The Gamut” – promising “a performance of unimaginable spaces, far off places, and audience participation iterations.” Litquake is simply beyond definition — a quintessential San Francisco phenomenon started in 1999, the same year as Bird & Beckett. Katia lives in the neighborhood, and Elizabeth probably lives pretty darn close since we see her in here a lot. Come have some fun with four award-winning writers! Litquake’s all over town, and it’s going to shake up Glen Park for sure!

The Seducers return to Bird & Beckett this coming Sunday, joined on the bandstand with their regular guitarist Mitch Polzak, who couldn’t be here last month when the band made its Bird & Beckett debut in our Riptide Sunday night “Canyon Moonlight Music” series.  He’s the mayor of Port Costa as well as the hottest rockabilly guitar picker & singer on the coast!  Ace pedal steel player Joe Goldmark, self-deprecatingly referring to himself as “all hat and no cattle,” leads the band, which features golden-throated Eddie Kendrick on bass and solid rockin’ Kenny Owen on drums. Classic country music for a moonlit October night hard by Glen Canyon, where the coyotes howl and the cats fear for their lives.   7:30-10 pm. Suggested donation – $10. Kenny Owen will be back, by the way, reading Kerouac on Misisipi Mike’s date at the end of the month (Oct. 25). It’s October…

Safa Shokrai – bass Timothy Orr – drums Rent Romus - alto saxophones/flutes Heikki Koskinen - e-trumpet/flutes Joshua Marshall – tenor saxophone Rent Romus’ Life’s Blood Ensemble presents music from their forthcoming recording entitled “Haven.” Albert Ayler once said  that “music is healing force of the universe”, and through this music, Life’s Blood Ensemble explores that which we all seek deep within ourselves. “Haven” is a place where we can be safe, find refuge, and express our true selves without borders or judgement.  A place where deep inside we wish to be protected from the harsh environment both from within and without. READ MORE ON RENT’S FACEBOOK PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/events/1884098908482179/

If it’s the second Sunday of the month, it’s time for Bird & Beckett’s Surf-a-billy Swing Time Dance Party– and don’t you know it starts at noon!  So get up, swill your coffee, and jet on down to the shop!  This time out we’ve got guitar god Jinx Jones on the stage with a likely bleary eyed Joe Kyle Jr. coming off a late night gig to slap that bass and the indomitable Kenny Owen ready to pound out the savage bongo beat you know you want to hear!  

jazz club! when lights are low… Grant Levin leads the date every 2nd Saturday night in our weekly “jazz club” series.  A brilliant pianist, Grant assembles terrific ensembles for his time on the Bird & Beckett bandstand, and tonight is no exception.  On saxophone, Howard Wiley will be making his first appearance at Bird & Beckett.  Born in Berkeley and raised in Hercules, he’s been among the most sought after players in the Bay Area since first making waves on the scene in the early 1990s… playing Koncepts Cultural Gallery at age 12 and Yoshi’s at 14.   Read more on Howard here.  Chris Amberger is on bass with Grant in a couple of sets as a duo from 4-6 pm, and then returns to the stage in the quartet, with Mark Lee on drums, when we turn the lights down at 7:30…  

Papa Joe Cohen can’t make it this Friday! There’s his brand new baby girl and other family matters… but bassist Adam Gay will handle the honors, putting together some top notch players to entertain you mightily, don’t you worry. He’s got sax player Lyle Link, pianist Keith Saunders and drummer Omar Aran on the bandstand with him, and a passel of fine tunes to play. A finer quartet, you couldn’t ask for!

Bassist Bishu Chatterjee, vocalist Vivek Anand, saxophonist Aaron Bennett and drummer Rusty Aceves explore a territory where zen-influenced jazz and Indian classical music interact.  

Finnish trumpet player Heikki Koskinen leads this ensemble, featuring Kati Pienimäki Schenker, vocals; Steve Heckman, saxes, flutes & clarinet; Rent Romus, saxes & flutes & kantele; and Noah Schenker, bass.  Heikki performs on piano, e-trumpet, tenor recorder & kantele. A poll winning jazz trumpet player in the 1970s in his native Finland, Koskinen came to the U.S. to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston and has had a long San Francisco tenure, composing, recording, teaching and collaborating on the bandstand with the likes of Hadley Caliman, Mark Levine, Joe Bonner, Benny Green, Larry Hancock and Michael Spiro.

Smith Dobson, highly regarded for his talents on tenor sax, vibes and drums, is picking up the alto for this date — the horn on which Charlie Parker made revolutionary jazz advances through the 1940s and 1950s. Charlie Parker, known as Bird, is the namesake of this little store, so you should know that we’re among the legions of people who revere the work he and a number of brilliant associates did in creating and developing the music we know as bop. We’re anxious to hear Smith and his associates grapple with Bird’s Scrapple from the Apple and all the rest of it.  Join us for two very fine sets of music. Your $10 cover charge helps us pay the musicians — a crucial task in these scary economic times. Along with you, we’re doing what we can to keep the culture healthy. Smith has assembled a fine band tonight, a…

Don Prell’s got a trio tonight, with Vinnie Rodriguez on drums and Jerry Logas on tenor — promising many some sublimely beautiful moments along the way.

Michael Marcus Duo “Remembering Morris Atchison Michael Marcus – clarinets Brian Ho – Hammond organ This concert, put together by New York clarinetist Michael Marcus, is a tribute to legendary tenor saxist Morris Atchison, an important player out of Oakland, Ca., working primarily in R&B and blues bands. Atchison toured with Bobby Blue Bland during the 70’s & 80’s & 90’s During part of the era, the band included the leader of this date, clarinetist Michael Marcus. Along the way, Atchison played with any number of great musicians including Johnny Talbot-Albert King-Little Johnny Taylor-Sonny Simmons-Muziki Roberson-Eddie Henderson-Sugar Pie DeSanto-Dottie Ivory-Art Lewis-Wayne Bennett-John Handy-Bobby Forte-Charles Brown-and many more artists of elite stature. Morris was awarded “Blues Saxophonist of the year” by the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame Michael Marcus got his start in the Bay Area in 1970’s playing in the local Bay Area blues scene with Sonny Rhodes-Hi TIde Harris-JJ…

Misisipi Mike is all over the San Francisco country/Americana scene, writing songs left and right, fielding more than a few bands and working in ten more as a hired gun & ringer. Not to mention turning out hundreds of stylish, eyeball pleasing show posters with an alacrity nobody can match — including a lot of your favorite Bird & Beckett posters. Tonight, he’ll take Glen Park on a hayride with Dillbilly — Denise Dill — and other special guests.  It’s another show in our burgeoning series of Sunday night “Canyon Moonlight Music” concerts.  7:30-10:00 pm on occasional Sundays. For as long as it takes to rebuild the Riptide bar out in the Sunset, or ’till the cows come home, whichever comes first, Mike will put together a show for you on the last Sunday of each month.   Read up on the Louisiana Hayride — the prototype for all this goodness…

Trickster & Deities:  Walker Brents discusses native american conceptions of god.

Cole Porter wrote a good portion of the most elegantly clever songs in the halcyon days of Tin Pan Alley. Drummer Vinnie Rodriguez leads a fine quartet through just a few of his most memorable numbers, and a few rediscovered chestnuts. Lyle Link – alto saxBen Stolorow – pianoAdam Gay – bass Vinnie Rodriguez – drums