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  

Filipino American composer and improviser Karl Evangelista is joined by a slew of Bay Area jazz stalwarts to present Taglish, a musical journey through 21st century immigrant culture. The project synthesizes jazz, American song, 20th century experimentalism, and Filipino folk melody into a sound that is at once universal and starkly personal. This will be the first presentation of the suite since 2014. Karl Evangelista: guitar Rob Ewing: trombone Jordan Glenn: drums John-Carlos Perea: electric bass Rei Scampavia: keys Francis Wong: saxophone Cory Wright: saxophone

Erik Jekabson, trumpet Kasey Knudsen, sax Keith Saunders, piano John Wiitala, bass Hamir Atwal, drums A stellar line up. Two rich sets. Don’t miss out! And be sure to look for the brand new CD, “Cheap Rent,” from the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, which holds forth at Doc’s Lab under Erik’s leadership on Sunday nights.  A 17 piece big band that wails!

Trumpet player Dave Scott, bassist Andrew Higgins and drummer Omar Aran join guitarist Scott Foster for two sets of jazz standards and originals evoking the season that arrives on the heels of our Indian summer.  Get in the mood just five days ahead of the autumnal equinox. Scott has been a cornerstone of our Friday jazz dates since their inception in the autumn of 2002.  Thirteen years on, he’s still bringing us some of the most soul satisfying music we’ve ever heard from the Bird & Beckett bandstand. You can hear him here with some of San Francisco’s best working jazz musicians on the third Friday of each month.

It’s the second Sunday of the month, so get out of bed and head here at noon for the soul side of the Surf-a-Billy Swing Time Dance Party. So you can MOVE! Guitarist Todd Swenson is up for it, with his trio of solid senders, This Side Up – featuring Endre Tarczy on bass and John Hanes on drums, and a special guest or two. Then loft above the surf on the Albatross Clarinet Quartet‘s draft from 4:30 to 6:30. Three bass clarinet players doubling on regular ol’ clarinet and a clarinet player who steadfastly, for one reason or another, apparently refuses to give in to the siren song of the bass clarinet — Dave Tidball, Jim Dukey, Dick Mathias and Charlie Keagle — play a program of classic and original chamber music and jazz. And as the sun goes down over the Pacific… …come on back to earth and into the fire for pedal steel ace Joe…

DUO: Pianist Grant Levin is in the store with a duo format from 4 to 6 pm, Saturday the 12th, with Pepe Jacobo on drums. It’s a fruitful collaboration that grows more interesting with each outing. Your tips make this a worthwhile endeavor monetarily for the musicians – $5-10 suggested, though it’s really up to you. Do more, if it doesn’t trouble you! QUARTET: Grant Levin is joined in the evening “jazz club” slot by Noel Jewkes on saxophone — truly one of the great saxophone players inhabiting the San Francisco/Bay Area jazz scene, and Kash Killion on bass, a mega talent in his own right, reprising a combination that worked magic back in June. Tonight, he’s adding Rufus Haereiti on drums, an exciting prospect given what we’ve been able to glean about his career and his association with Grant to date. Read a recent article on Noel here, a bit…

Bishu Chatterjee, bass, leads the band this Friday. Bishu has been part of the regular jazz rotation since the beginning, back in late 2002, and has been integral to the second Friday sequence for years. The quintet Bishu has assembled for tonight features Ian Carey on trumpet, Aaron Bennett on sax; John Kiskaddon on piano; and Jeff Weinmann on drums.   Watch also for Bishu’s date at the end of the month, on September 27th, 4:30-6:30 pm, with his group Zejara (zen-jazz-raga), where Indian classical and jazz traditions intersect. That date will include Vivek Anand, voice; Aaron Bennett – sax; Bishu Chatterjee – bass; and Surya Prakash – drums.

It’s a long-standing tradition at Bird & Beckett– Featured local poets and an open mic for locals and visitors to the city alike.  Twice a month, on the first and third Monday of the month.  Jerry Ferraz, a near legendary peripatetic bard & troubadour, hosts the evening, and opens the open mic. Tonight, Alice Rogoff, Kim Shuck and Kristen Jensen are featured. Alice edits the Haight Ashbury Literary Review as well as writing assiduously. Sings in the Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus as well. Kim works in textiles and teaches as well as writing, paying particular attention in all her endeavors to the implications of her Native American roots. Kristen lived in San Francisco eight years, publishing poems in the Haight Ashbury Review and writing a history of the Caffe Trieste and a biographer of its founder, Giovanni Giotta. In 2005 she departed and ended up in Dubai; now she splits her…

Smith Dobson, known for his work on drums, vibes and sax among other pursuits, is happily at work building a new quartet with a new sound, drawing on the tradition of vibes-led groups like the Modern Jazz Quartet. For his date this Saturday, 9/5, he’s got Luke Westbrook on guitar; Miles Wick on bass and Hamir Atwal on drums.

Bassist Don Prell entered the business in the mid-1950s as a member of The Bud Shank Quartet, recording two albums with Shank – “The Bud Shank Quartet featuring Claude Williamson” (1956) and “Bud Shank on Tenor” (1957). Don has anchored our Friday night jazz in the bookshop series, just as often taking it aloft, since it began in October 2002. We’ve never missed a Friday in all those years – even when we had to move the shop from Diamond Street up to Chenery. And on at least two occasions, we wouldn’t have been able to keep the tradition unbroken but for Don– the Christmas day he played solo on the sidewalk… and long before that, there was the Friday he was the only player who showed up for the gig, so he kept us completely happy with a couple sets of solo bass. Regardless, the music is always a joy. Don’s…

Straight-ahead and spiritually adventurous jazz from trumpeter Earle Davis, whose approach and commitment to the art have been shaped by decades of experience in the jazz trenches on both coasts. Jake Barrett, piano, and Danny Castro, bass, join Earle for this afternoon’s date. With a shared history on the bandstand prior to today’s date, Danny and Jake will begin the afternoon’s program as a duo..

Walker Brents III will from time to time over the next several months address Native American myths & symbols in a series of talks. Today: John Neihardt and Black Elk.  The mysterious journey of each one’s daimon, questing in the mythic west, culminating in the prophetic beauty of Black Elk Speaks. Neihardt is an influential presence, a fierce post-transcendentalist with a voracious appetite for an adventurous truth.