Food writer Jane Sigal presents her new book, and is joined for the Q&A by Paul Chutkow, author, journalist and publisher. bistronomy covers today’s bistro cooking in Paris – French food reimagined by a new generation of chefs. There’s a new movement afoot in Paris. Young chefs have turned their backs on stuffiness and are creating an experience that is more fun and a lot less formal. In tiny independent bistros, mostly on the outskirts of the city, they’re turning out fantastically inventive food that bypasses many of the old sauces and relies instead on the vibrancy of responsibly sourced ingredients. Because they’re working in tiny kitchens with little or no staff, advance preparation is esteemed. (Good news for the home cook looking to crib kitchen notes.) Among their tricks (which could fit easily into anyone’s repertoire) are finding inspired uses for humble root vegetables like rutabaga and parsnips, presenting a vegetable…

The Seducers have well earned a regular Second Sunday booking in Bird & Beckett’s new 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 Les James. 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. Suggested donation – $10.

A return engagement of San Francisco’s finest interpreters of early jazz, vaudeville, rural blues, ragtime and popular tunes!  Click here to listen to their duo guitar performance of Cold Mornin’ Shout. Craig Ventresco was lured out to San Francisco from Maine in 1987 by the promised riches of the musician’s life to be had here.  Like Rick with regard to Casablanca’s fabled waters, he was misinformed. Nonetheless, he has managed to ply his trade here for decades, and is known internationally as a virtuoso of the guitar and historian of early American popular music. He sings a bit as well, which is always a pleasure to hear. Craig is deeply familiar with all manner of turn-of-the-20th-century popular music, gleaned from years of collecting old cylinders and 78 rpm records after glomming onto the music as a toddler. “I love all kinds of music from the turn of the century–” he…

Surf, Italian Style! or is it, Italian, Surf Style? Click on the picture to ponder that.

EaR Candy digs into their deep repertoire with a relish that’ll set you grinning ear to ear. Eric Shifrin, piano Ralph Carney, reeds Bing Nathan, bass Scott Johnson, drums Some photos from last month’s date, with Joe Kyle, Jr. on bass:and Randy Lee Odell on drums: performance photos by Angela Bennett; group photo by Dennis Hearne.

Jordan Samuels – guitar Sam Grobe-Heintz – piano Josh Thurston-Milgrom – bass Austin Lee Harris – drums Jordan Samuels has been studying, performing and teaching in the Bay Area for 20 years, and gigging on the local jazz scene since 2010.  He has studied guitar with Randy Vincent and Bruce Forman, and is strongly influenced by Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Barney Kessel and Peter Bernstein.  He performs regularly with the Hot Club of San Francisco, the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra and Certified Organic, as well as his own trios and quartets. Pianist Sam Grobe-Heintz has been active in the Bay Area jazz scene for the past 13 years, playing with Andrew Speight, Akira Tana, Erik Jekabson, Marcus Belgrave, Donald “Duck” Bailey, Eric Alexander, Wycliffe Gordon, Alexander String Quartet, Mike Olmos, Eddie Marshall and others. He’s a member of several Bay Area bands, including Horace-Scope and the Fil Lorenz Orchestra, and has…

It’s the wolfman, Jack! Happy Halloween… jazz club! when lights are low… every Saturday night at Bird & Beckett! Tonight:  Tenor sax player Patrick Wolff leads the San Francisco Repertory Jazz Quartet with Adam Shulman on piano Eric Markowitz on bass and Jimmy Gallagher on drums $10 cover

AND SAW THE HEAVEN OPEN (UND SAH DIE HIMMEL OFFEN):  Spirituality here and beyond religion. Narratives, voices, contemplations Peter Erlenwein, Ph.D. will read from his book and engage in discussion with the audience. Dr. Erlenwein offers a fascinating approach towards the complex dynamics of spirituality, religion and society. The title of Dr. Erlenwein’s book, And saw the heaven open, is programmatic – prominent German/American and other voices of the global civil societies share their views; far reaching dimensions of spiritual experience, beyond mainstream stereotypes are hereby reflected, concerning their profound meaning for a secularized Western mind. Peter Erlenwein (PH.D.) is a sociopsychologist and transpersonal therapist from Germany.  His integral approach combines Jungian archetypal psychology, meditation and body mind work with dance, ritual  and role playing in the context of sacred text reflections of different religious traditions. (Hagio/Sacred-drama). His spiritual insight and life has been deeply inspired by his decades long…

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.