Swing and bop by long-time masters of the music… the core Bird & Beckett jazz experience.  Not to be underestimated! Chuck Peterson & Howie Dudune, reeds; Glen Deardorff, guitar; Dean Reilly, bass; Tony Johnson, drums, with vocalist Dorothy Lefkovits.

Jerry Ferraz hosts Bird & Beckett’s bi-monthly poetry reading and open mic, this week featuring Zigi Lowenberg working with Oakland pianist Bill Crossman. An open mic follows. Lowenberg was raised in Queens and then relocated to the Bay Area from East Village in Manhattan, and now she’s back in NYC. She’s traveling west in January to read in Berkeley and San Francisco. Lowenberg comes from a family in which the women were heavily involved in politics. Her mother was involved in fair housing issues and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She has worked since 1990 in collaboration with her husband, Raymond Nat Turner in the poetry and jazz ensemble called Upsurge. From New York, Boston, New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago, and Ghana, West Africa, Upsurge has performed nationally and internationally, collaborating across disciplines of jazz, poetry, history and politics. “Raymond and Zigi have such respect for the words…

Jinx Jones, hot shot rockabilly guitarist with a jazz habit, brings his trio — Joe Kyle, Jr. on bass and Ken Owen on drums — to Bird & Beckett, mixing some Monk, Bird & Bud into the locomotive beast that drives audiences to a frenzy up in North Beach at the Saloon and Tupelo, your finer venues far and wide, and out in the sun of the annual Glen Park Festival. Hear them tonight in the comfort of Glen Park’s own little bookshop cum jazz club. Another date in our burgeoning “Canyon Moonlight” concert series. Says Jinx, “Surf-a-billy after hours is the hottest party in town and one of San Francisco’s best kept secrets, (but not for long)!”

The Lost Trio, comprising Phillip Greenlief (reeds), Dan Seamans (bass) and Tom Hassett (drums), performed at Bird & Beckett in July 2015 with guitarist Scott Foster at Scott’s invitation. It was a beautiful occasion, and now the Lost Trio is returning the favor.  You should be here for this! Greenlief is one of the top avant garde sax players of our era, totally rooted in the swinging jazz tradition. The other players? Top notch jazzmen all, each with an individual sensibility that will afford  you plenty of delight. Why would you want to stay home? The opportunities you have at Bird & Beckett to hear truly exceptional music are not to be passed up. Week in and week out, we have the best jazz series in the region. The musicians love to play for you here. Come find out for yourself why that is! Regarding The Lost Trio: The Lost…

Bassist John Wiitala and drummer Greg Wyser-Pratt join Canadian pianist/vocalist Gaea Schell, who’s been making her mark on the San Francisco jazz scene since arriving a couple years ago.             In the judgment of Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath, Gaea “plays the heck out of the piano with them small hands.” Known among her peers for swinging every note, subtle phrasing, and honest lyrical writing, Gaea is a native of western Canada where she grew up playing music from an early age. Recorder lessons at age 6 with family friend, the late San Francisco based drummer Eddie Marshall, was one of her first musical ventures. Pursuit of a classical harp degree led her to check Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans records out of the school library, inspiring a move East and subsequent graduation from the jazz program at acclaimed McGill University in Montreal. Gaea’s real learning, however,…

Lorenzo Farrell on organ and Eric Garland on drums join guitarist Scott Foster to roll out two sets of blues & jazz to redirect your energies for the new year!

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

Parlor Tricks is: Eddie Scher, National resonator guitar; Melina Selverston, sultry vocals; Jeff Bruner, contrabass and Fabio Reis, drums — a self-styled “industrial ragtime” band, doing for syncopation what Led Zepplin did for the theremin and what Lady Gaga did for bubbles! Parlor Tricks is the world’s first and foremost industrial ragtime band, scratching that hard to reach itch between Fats Waller and the Red Hot Chili Peppers– late-century covers and originals served with syncopation and stomp.

4-6 pm: Grant Levin, piano and Ricardo Diaz, bass weave a web of jazz at once delicate and indestructible. Really! You’ll like it. Feed that tip jar generously!!! 7:30-10 pm: Grant Levin leads a quartet, featuring Jonathan Bautista on tenor sax, Walter Savage on bass and Malachi Whitson on drums. This date will knock your socks off. Walter Savage was a key bass player on the Bay Area scene for decades before trying a self-imposed exile with his wife to Arkansas — that experiment was successful enough, but the Bay Area has drawn them back and now they’re established in Vallejo, with Walter driving into the city for any good gigs that come his way. He’s monstrously talented, and we’re lucky indeed to have him back. And then there’s Jonathan Bautista, with a true tenor tone and fluidity that’s a beautiful fit for this quartet. We’ve been beyond happy to…

jazz in the bookshop is our weekly Friday after work jazz party. Trumpeter Henry Hung brings in a quartet this week, with Jordan Samuels on guitar and Otto Huber on drums. Henry is a lyrical player whose grace is unmistakable, with charm and musical intelligence to spare. You’ll be pleased, we’re sure. He’s also the band director at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts at the rim of Glen Canyon.

This Sunday night, Eric Shifrin and Ralph Carney lead the eclectic and rollicking quartet they call EaR Candy… with Joe Kyle, Jr. on bass and Randy Odell on drums. EaR Candy operates on the principle that to steal from one artist is plagiarism, but to steal from everyone is research!  Music from Duke Ellington to Gene Autry — obscure gems polished or just roughed up, it’s all the same to these guys! Grist for the mill. Eric & Ralph are both facing the realities of San Francisco economics– Ralph’s already shifted his base up to Portland or thereabouts, and Eric’s lingering uncomfortably while they Ellis Act him and his wife out of their abode.   The same economics are staring drummer Randy Odell in the face. Randy is scrambling to find a way to stay in the apartment he shares with his partner, the west coast blues guitarist GG Amos, over…

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…