On March 1st, Bird & Beckett is proud and pleased to welcome faculty and friends of that august institution, the Community Music Center, with its headquarters on Capp Street in the Mission District and its outpost in the Richmond… offering a musical education to countless San Franciscans of all ages for nine decades-plus! Once a year, composer/pianist Betty Wong rustles up a cadre of talented teachers and associates of the school to celebrate Chinese New Year at Bird & Beckett with a wide-ranging program. And this year — the Year of the Ram — is no exception! You’ll enjoy a unique sampling of music from 2,000 year old ancient harps, the “guqin” and the guzheng,” journey to the land of Genghis Khan, hear poetry by local poet Nellie Wong, cross the globe to sample the works of Rachmaninoff and Grieg, then hear “music for the feet” in the form of…

Alto player Terrance Tony assembles the band each 4th Saturday of the month, drawing on some of the stellar players around the Bay Area.   A couple of years ago, Terrance came out from Houston – where he was born and raised – and immediately gained everyone’s attention with his fleet bebop chops.  “Houston’s a great place to be from,” he says.  We’re lucky to have him call Oakland home! But it was In Houston and Dallas where he became the musician he is today — under the direct influence and bandstand tutelage of some true giants, including Texas tenors Illinois Jacquet, Arnett Cobb, Don Wilkerson and Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson and Dallas titans James Clay and Marchel Ivery. Terrance toured with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in 1989 in the stellar line up that included Benny Green, Donald Harrison, Javon Jackson and Frank Lacy, playing on a swing from New Orleans up through NYC and a spate…

Margot Pepper introduces her new noir/sci fi novel, American Day Dream (Freedom Voices Press, 2015).  Joined by Clifton Ross, reading selected and new poems. “Margot Pepper’s literary incursion into Science Fiction is just like her—daring, brave and fully imagined. She is a story goddess living in and out of verses, whose political stance is vital and necessary.” —Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running and It Calls You Back Born in Mexico City, Margot Pepper is a bilingual educator, whose fiction, poetry, articles and translations have been published internationally by the Utne Reader, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, ZNet, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Monthly Review, Dollars & Sense, NACLA, Rethinking Schools, City Lights, Hampton Brown, Race, Poverty & the Environment, Prensa Latina, El Tecolote, El Andar, Canada’s The Scoop and elsewhere. She is best known for her memoir about her year working in Cuba, Through the Wall: A Year in…

An excursion through the scrapbook of the music’s history in these parts, from Jelly Roll Morton passing through to Kid Ory in a longer sojourn, the post-WWII Fillmore jazz scene, Turk Murphy and his trad revival crew… the Blackhawk, Brubeck, the Both/And and Bimbos… and Keystone Korner, where three bucks got you in on a weekday, $3.50 on a weekend for the likes of Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Yusef Latif, Charles Mingus, Freddie Hubbard… impossible to imagine how fantastic that run was, yet there it was… all we can do is flip through the pages, then turn an ear to the musicians before you, who plumb the history of jazz and the vast depths of their imaginations to take the music into the moment, and then further… Medea Isphording Bern will be on hand during the Friday jazz session with Chuck Peterson’s quintet, to introduce her book and…

Walker Brents III weaves a fascinating web of insight, association, speculation and delight the last Sunday of every month, following his muse where it takes him on topics divers — from epic literature to mythological tales to the enigmas of poetry and the profundities of philosophy and religion. This afternoon, Walker takes a personal and historical tour through the nine muses, daughters of memory in the primodial domains of beauty and truth… contextualized within the musical echoings of doctor, guitarrero and long-time friend Chris Nauman.

Kim Shuck presents poems from her new collection, Clouds Running In, (Taurean Horn Press, 2014). Kim Shuck is a poet, weaver, educator doer of piles of laundry, planter of seeds, traveler and child wrangler. She was born in her mother’s hometown of San Francisco, one hill away from where she now lives. Her ancestors were and are Tsalagi, Sauk and Fox and Polish, for the most part. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in weaving in 1998 from San Francisco State University. As a poet Kim has read her work around the US and elsewhere. In late 2005 she toured through Jordan with a group of poets from all over the globe in the interest of peace and communication. Shuck reads her work on local radio frequently. Kim’s visual art has been included in shows both locally and abroad such as a textile show at the National Museum…

The mighty North Beach Brass Band takes over the venerable Bird & Beckett Books shop in Glen Park on Saturday January 30th. San Francisco’s talented North Beach Brass Band is at once a traditional brass band playing early jazz and golden standards, and an electrified funky jazz act playing classic blues, Motown and soul tunes. Band leader Ed Ivey, wielding his sousaphone like it’s weightless, takes this unit through classic grooves in the New Orleans tradition and forays deep into the bebop and funk realms. North Beach Brass Band covers almost every American genre, from Louis Armstrong’s favorites to danceable covers of Seventies hits from legends like Aretha Franklin, Jimmy Reed, Buddy Guy, War, Hugh Masekela, The Meters, Jobim, and Miles Davis Ed Ivey, tuba and bass Dave Bullers, sax Daniel Herrera, trumpet Blake Ritterman, trap set Byron Rynes, guitar

Parents, teachers and anyone who works or plays with young children will find much of value in Sydney Clemens’ new work, which springs from Reggio Emilia pedagogical principles and insights. For decades, Sydney, who has been a Glen Park resident for more than half her life, has written about young children and has given talks internationally. She is particularly known for her respectful attitude toward young children. Sydney’s new book, Seeing Young Children with New Eyes: What We’ve Learned from Reggio Emilia About Children and Ourselves, co-written with Leslie Gleim, is available at Bird & Beckett.