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.  

The long overdue SIXTH issue of AMERARCANA: A Bird & Beckett Review is now available, featuring art by Will Yackulic and writing by Garrett Caples, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Derek Fenner, Jackqueline Frost, Evan Kennedy, Frank Lima, Jason Morris, Rod Roland, Aaron Shurin, Cedar Sigo, Syd Staiti, Richard Tagett, Tara Thomas, and the editor, Nicholas James Whittington, along with translations of Hafez by Patrick James Dunagan and Ava Koohbor. Order now. And/or show your face and flash some cash on Wednesday, December 9th at 7:00 pm when we’ll hold a celebration of the publication with readings by contributors, libations, and general near-year-end levity. Please help spread the word!

Joshua Raoul Brody Christopher Gray Joe Cunningham are The Potrero Hillbillies! Joshua Raoul Brody writes:  Everybody loves the Kinks. Not everybody loves their widely overlooked album Muswell Hillbillies, and that is a shame: it’s one of those albums (like, in this writer’s opinion, Revolver, Loaded (what an interesting juxtaposition!), the Band’s 2nd album,Smiley Smile, Loudon Wainwright’s High Wide & Handsome, and Little Village) where every track is exquisite PLUS they all hang together to make a lovely whole PLUS it sounds like everybody had a lot of fun making it (whether or not that’s actually true) AND it’s a lot of fun to listen to. Underrated genius Ray Davies joined alternately witty and heartbreaking lyrics to his brother’s gift for irresistibly catchy guitar hooks and the result should have been even more successful than the previous year’s “Lola”, but somehow it didn’t take off – maybe switching record labels had something to…

Denise Perrier, vocals Jerry Logas, saxophone Keith Saunders, piano Adam Gay, bass Tony Johnson, drums “Denise has this wonderfully warm voice….Listening to her is like sipping the best glass of wine you ever had in your life. You savor every note that comes out of her mouth.” – Dee Spencer, pianist and professor of music. “Denise has everything a singer should: sound, soul, swing and feeling. And she’s a party!” — Houston Person, tenor saxophonist “Denise Perrier is more than a good singer. She is a complete entertainer, who is able to take a song and make it her own.” –Clifford Brown, Jr. radio host, KCSM “She’s the real deal, right in there with Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington.” – Bryan Gould, founder of big band Swing Fever “Perrier’s work is big, rich, melodic, and hits home with a remarkable punch. She has that swirling, dancing, ingratiating intimacy usually associated…