Joe Goldmark, pedal steel guitar Mitch Polzak, lead guitar and vocals Hank Maninger, bass guitar and vocals Kenny Owen, drums The Seducers play the songs of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and countless other giants of classic and outlaw country music. Bring $20 for the musicians! BYOB, too!   Can’t make it to the shop for the show? You can view it from wherever you are on Bird & Beckett’s Facebook page or YouTube channel. Please donate to help us pay the musicians and maintain the live stream! You’ll find instructions on the screen during the stream, and you can also call us for information on how to do it. Thanks for supporting the culture!

Over in the canyon, just up the street from the bookshop, the Gum Tree Girls Festival is slated for 10am to 3:30pm on Sunday the 10th, with live music, stirring oratory, informative history, food, drink, games and community camaraderie! You don’t want to miss it! With the Festival coming up in just a few days, they need volunteeers to help out! See the link at right! (Sunday, too, be sure to drop by Bird & Beckett after the Fest at 5pm for The Seducers, America’s favorite honky tonk band, live in the bookshop!) The Gum Tree Girls, you ask? In the mid-1960s, the Gum Tree Girls — Geri Arkush, Zoanne Theriault Nordstrom and Joan Seiwald, pictured here — and prior to that, in 1958, Minnie Straub Baxter, stood up and saved Glen Canyon from sporting a double deck, elevated “viaduct” expressway to the other side of Twin Peaks! Right over…

Bob Kenmotsu, tenor saxophone Ben Stolorow , piano Ollie Dudek, bass Vince Lateano, drums $20 cash cover charge Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30pm show BYOB and a mask Can’t make it to the shop? Nothing’s like the real thing live! Ollie Dudek digs deep into the book of compositions by some of the greatest bass players in jazz, including Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford, Charles Mingus, Wilbur Ware, Paul Chambers, Red Mitchell and Sam Jones. For the occasion, he’s called up a terrific quartet of experienced players well known to Bird & Beckett audiences, well prepared to dig into the material.

Julie Rogers is the author of three Omerta Publications chapbooks published pre-Covid that will be released on this occasion: Trading Fours and Sharing Breath, both written with her late husband, poet David Meltzer; and her own volume, Life on Earth. Her other books include House of the Unexpected, and “Instructions for the Transitional State.”  Two Tone Poetry & Jazz, a cd recorded with David Meltzer and saxophonist Zan Stewart, will also be available. Julie teaches creative writing and is the Director of TLC Transitional Life Care. Find her at www.julrogers.com. Peter Marti graduated from SF State University, studied at the Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. was a member of the San Francisco-based poetry collective Birthstone in the ’70s, was a rock n roll singer in ’80s, and was part of the Wordland performance poetry group in the ’90s. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2002 and has been…

Ray Skjelbred, piano Marc Caparone, trumpet Clint Baker, bass Jeff Hamilton, drums $20 cash cover charge at the door Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30pm show BYOB and a mask Can’t make it to the shop? Nothing’s like the real thing live! But if you want to catch it in the stream, look for it on our YouTube channel or our Facebook page. Donate to support the musicians! Chicago-born, Seattle-based pianist Ray Skjelbred returns to Bird & Beckett in the company of like-minded friends — three of the very best players the California trad scene has to offer. You’re in for an evening steeped in early Chicago style jazz on a rich program of originals and classic material. Wherever he’s been heard, Ray has been held in very high regard for the past five decades. His facility and imagination are unmatched, and his influences run deep — artists including…

Catch some jazz on the eve of the 4th! San Francisco’s august Mission District institution, the Community Music Center, is sending a group coached by reed player Charlie Gurke for a 5pm set on Sunday July 3rd, to be followed at 6pm with a jam session open to students and budding professionals led by famed drummer Akira Tana, with Keith Saunders on piano and Eric Markowitz on bass. The Community Music Center has been a font of great local jazz musicians for generations–and has been teaching San Franciscans of all ages from all walks of life for one hundred years. The CMC ensemble, coached by reed player Charlie Gurke, on July 3rd will include: Brian Wood – alto sax Justin Willow – trombone  Patrick Gallagher – piano Paul Yago – bass Wen-Hao Lue – drums Next month, on August 7th, another CMC ensemble will take the stage. That one is…

New York comes to Bird & Beckett tonight! Richie Vitale, trumpet star, plays with local heroes Keith Saunders, piano; Eric Markowitz, bass; and Ron Marabuto, drums. Trust Keith and Ron…you want to hear this jazzman. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:3-9:30 show. $20 cash cover charge at the door. Call to reserve a seat – 415-586-3733. BYOB and a mask! Can’t make it down to the shop for the show. You can find it streamed live on our youtube channel and facebook page. Born in Rochester, New York, on September 23 (also John Coltrane’s birthday), Richard Vitale played with drummer Philly Joe Jones at the early age of sixteen. After moving to New York City, Richie performed with jazz luminaries Joe Williams, Barry Harris, Joe Morello and Sal Nistico, with Johnny Mathis and Tony Bennett, and with Sting and James Taylor. His experience with big bands has been no…

Dan Neville, vibes Brian Andres, drums Erick Peralta, piano Aaron Germain, bass Javier Cabanillas, congas $25 cash cover charge byob and a mask doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show Live streamed on our facebook page and youtube channel. Dan Neville fields an all-star Latin combo this time out at Bird &  Beckett. Over the past several years, he’s brought many diverse projects to Bird & Beckett and has made several extended trips to Colombia and Cuba, studying music and connecting with musicians worldwide. Highlights include studying with the Colombian legend Diego Obregón in 2018 and 2020; in 2020, he spent an entire year helping build a recording studio, recording various ensembles, writing music and collaborating. Dan was featured on the radio in Guantanamo, Cuba in January of 2019 with his album Tenerife. Dan has spearheaded two successful crowdfunding campaigns: One for the release of his debut album Tenerife…

Drummer Vince Lateano leads the session with Peter Barshay on bass and Ben Stolorow on piano. A lot of great players have come out of San Francisco. Get in their number. Before the saints coming marching in! No fee to play. Audience, bring a $20 to help us pay the rhythm section. BYOB    

Evidence Trio is an improvisational group whose points of reference are free jazz, dark ambient, and radio emissions from the early universe. Andrew Joron, theremin Kersti Abrams, sax and flute Thomas Harrison. electric bass Joining the bill is Ava Koohbor, Iranian-American electronic musician, visual artist and poet. Visit her website at avakoohborarts.com for samples of her audio and other work. Ava’s poetry publications include the chapbook, Triangle Squared  (Bootstrap Press, Letterpress Editions #1, 2014) and the book Death Under Construction (Ugly Duckling Presse / Bird & Beckett Ensemble Edition, 2019). Andrew Joron will also be introducing his novel O0 (Black Square Editions, 2022), a work of speculation, probing the unknowable. “In Andrew Joron’s O0, two novellas brilliantly intersect. Through a unique reworking of various New Wave sci-fi tropes, space-time is transmuted into ‘reshuffled narrative pathways, a collage of illogical facades and stairways that end in mid-air,’ leaving readers in the…

Eric Shifrin brings a Latin touch to the bandstand tonight, in a long-standing trio with bassist Paul Smith and drummer Raul Ramirez. $20 cover (cash, please!); doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show.  Bring a mask and something to drink, if you like. You’re in for a delightful evening of music. Catch it in our live stream if you can’t make it into the shop, but you really don’t want to miss the real thing, in real time, in person. Eric Shifrin learned piano as a child on his mother’s lap and turned professional right out of high school, gigging on both alto sax and piano to earn his bread and butter. He was composing and recording from the start, put in time on cruise ships, spent crucial years in Japan and by the 1990s was rooted in the Bay Area, where his movable feast of music embodied in…

Drummer Tony Johnson brings in a quartet on the fourth Friday of each month. Tonight it’s the 230 Jones Street Band, with Charlie McCarthy, saxophone & flute; Glen Deardorff, guitar and Al Obidinski, bass. Four veteran jazz players, and long-time friends, swingin’. $20 cash cover charge; byob & a mask. Find the live stream on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel or Facebook page, and donate if you possibly can to support the musicians, the music and the venue! Tony hit San Francisco in 1959, fresh off the boat from his native Australia, ready and raring to go. He got busy in the North Beach clubs right away, recorded in 1960 with vocalist Bev Kelly in a combo with legendary saxophonist Pony Poindexter, pianist Flip Nunez and bassist Johnny Allen at the Coffee Gallery on Grant Street, played behind Bobby Short at the Hungry I. Tony played on the Ed Sullivan…

Guitarist Ed Cherry is in town briefly and brings a trio into Bird & Beckett with Adam Shulman on piano and Owen Clapp on bass. Call for reservations – 415-586-3733; limited seating. $20 cash cover charge. BYOB and a mask. Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30pm show. Ed Cherry moved to New York from New Haven, Connecticut in 1978 to play guitar with Dizzy Gillespie from 1978 to 1992 performing in Gillespie’s quartet and big band, and with Diz’s United Nation Orchestra, which recorded the 1989 Grammy Award-winning lp, “Live at Royal Festival Hall,” for Enja Records. Ed was with Gillespie’s group in San Francisco for an SFJAZZ date in 1991 on a bill opened by saxophonist Mel Martin’s Big Band — here’s a clip from Gillespie joining the Martin band for a take on Manteca that night, with Vince Lateano and John Santos in the band. Diz died…

None will dispute the notion that Dr. Legato, the multi-instrumentalist Noel Jewkes, has been in the top echelon of jazz players in the region for five decades. Noel is known for his swing and the cool elegance of his work on all manner of reeds, as well as piano and a few more instruments besides. He draws the best from any rhythm section and draws the best rhythm section players around to share the stage and make some beautiful music. Tonight’s quartet, with Grant Levin on piano, Chris Amberger on bass and David Rokeach on drums, will offer up a generous scattering of gems from the jazz canon and some beautifully polished Jewkes originals. With Kay Kostopolous contributing her sultry vocal talents, this will be a lovely evening for all. $20-30 sliding scale cash cover charge, please! B&B is a “Guaranteed Fair Wage” establishment. Coming to the show? BYOB and…

Paul Combs, saxophone Ken Cook, piano Doug Miller, bass Alex Aspinall, drums A night of obscure Dameronia presented and performed by the Paul Combs Quartet. Tadd Dameron was a cornerstone of late 1940s jazz, contributing key compositions to the jazz canon including “Good Bait,” “Our Delight,” “Hot House,” “Lady Bird,” and “If You Could See Me Now.” Here’s a link to a good biographical sketch: http://www.bluenote.com/artist/tadd-dameron/ Saxophonist, educator and jazz historian Paul Combs has done prodigious work — a true labor of love — bringing a huge number of little known Tadd Dameron compositions to light in recent years, evidenced by Paul’s recent cd, “Unknown Dameron: Rare and Never Recorded Works of Tadd Dameron” and his book Dameronia: The Life and Music of Tadd Dameron. Visit Paul’s site for much additional information: paulcombs.com If you can’t make it in person, you’ll find a live stream on Bird & Beckett Facebook…

Guitarist Scott Foster always cooks up a good show on the third Friday of each month. This month, he’s invited multi-instrumentalist Danny Bittker to help assemble a quintet and to call the tunes. Danny plays saxophones, clarinet and steel pan on this date, joined by Zach Pitt-Smith on sax and flute, Greg Nottage acoustic and electric bass, and Dan Foltz on drums, with Lee Heuermann on vocals! $20 cash cover charge at the door. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show. Reservations: 415-586-3733 BYOB and a mask. If you can’t make it in person, you’ll find a live stream on Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. Donate per the instructions on the screen if you can afford to support live music and the great local musicians who play it for you!

The Glen Park merchants celebrate the neighborhood with a FREE BEER! party on the third Thursday of every third month, and this month, the guest of honor & delight is Tony from Critter Fritters. No live stream, no cover charge! Just come down to the shop & party with your neighbors! Tony is a neighborhood icon of the first water, one of the jewels in the Glen Park tiara! And what would your darling pets do without him, we ask! And the trio tonight is a great one! Groove merchant Larry Vann is a Bird & Beckett favorite, whether it’s with his own long-standing trio with Tim Landis on guitar and Michael Warren on bass, or in his frequent dates with the New Squatoolas and other great bands. He’s a Bay Area legend with a storied history in the biz. And he is, in fact, the Groove Merchant! Tonight, Adam…

Kim Shuck, San Francisco Poet Laureate 2019-2021, hosts an online Bird & Beckett poetry reading twice a month – on the 2nd and 4th Mondays. Paul Corman Roberts and Youssef Alaoui are the featured poets for this session, with an open mic to follow. Bird and Beckett VirtualPoets, 6/13!! When Mon Jun 13, 2022 7pm – 8:30pm Pacific Time – Los Angeles Where https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84350265713?pwd=eE84V3BYdWxiSFBHNHhmdUt1WTUzdz09 (map) Joining info Join with Google Meet meet.google.com/wub-iqeu-xoy Calendar [email protected] Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84350265713?pwd=eE84V3BYdWxiSFBHNHhmdUt1WTUzdz09 Meeting ID: 843 5026 5713 Passcode: 244211 One tap mobile +16699006833,,84350265713#,,,,*244211# US (San Jose) +13462487799,,84350265713#,,,,*244211# US (Houston) Dial by your location +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 929 436 2866 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) Meeting ID: 843 5026 5713 Passcode: 244211 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/keiLsfdeVg…

Lucien Zell, passing through on his way to take part in the poetry workshops at the High Sierra Community of Writers in Olympic Valley at Lake Tahoe, will read some of his work alongside colleagues Kim Shuck, San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita (2019-2021), and Lee Rossi. Can’t make it down to the shop for the reading? You’ll miss the wine & snacks and real-time camaraderie, but a live stream will be found on the Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. Lucien Zell’s writing has appeared in The New Orleans Review, Tikkun and Poetry Salzburg Review, and will appear in three upcoming anthologies. His first American book of poetry, Tiny Kites (Dos Madres), was published in 2019. A professional singer-songwriter, his folk/rock album “Fall into Flight” is available on iTunes and Spotify. “Carnival of Shades,” a classical piece for which he composed the libretto, premiered last November at the…

San Francisco journalist Denise Sullivan conducts a monthly series of conversations (the second Sunday of each month from 10-11 a.m.) with The City’s activists, educators, arts and cultural leaders, as well as lesser-known workers, the everyday people who help make this place we call home, live streamed from Bird & Beckett Books. This month’s guest is Megan Wilson, artist, organizer and co-director of the Clarion Alley Mural Project. Wilson is a visual artist, writer, curator, and activist/community organizer based in San Francisco. She creates large-scale installations, public projects, and street art, incorporating a broad range methodologies and aesthetics to address conceptual interests that include home, justice, impermanence, and generosity. Wilson has been an artist and organizer with Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) since 2000 and is the current co-director. Find the stream on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel or Facebook page.  

Michael Zilber, saxophone Matt Clark, piano Essiet Okon Essiet, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums $20 cash cover charge at the door. Reservations: 415-586-3733 BYOB and a mask. Michael Zilber writes prolifically and plays a great tenor saxophone. Fine quartet on this date! Do come and enjoy a fine night of small combo jazz music in your cozy neighborhood bookshop cum jazz club. If you can’t make it in person, you’ll find a live stream on Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. In the autumn of 2021, Mike released the album “Mike Drop” on Sunnyside Records as co-leader with another Mike — the drummer Mike Clark. The album received rapturous reviews in Downbeat, All About Jazz and the New York Jazz Record. Matt Clark was the pianist and Peter Barshay the bassist on the album, which featured two Zilber originals and tunes by Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Duke Pearson and…

Phillip Greenlief, tenor saxophone Dan Seamans, bass Tom Hassett, drums Always a pleasure to hear The Lost Trio! Decades of collaboration and a rich book of tunes by the likes of Thelonious Monk, Steve Lacy, Herbie Nichols and many, many more. $20 cash cover charge at the door. Reservations welcome: call 415-586-3733 BYOB and a mask. A live stream will be found on Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. Donate! Here’s a taste of a their last trio outing playing jazz in the bookshop…  

The Pedro Pastrana Quartet is for sure a latin jazz ensemble, though it’s one like no other. On paper, the group might seem like your traditional jazz quartet — a wind instrument, bass, drums and a chordal instrument, in this case, the cuatro. But it’s the integration of the cuatro that defines the Ensemble’s unique style, connecting the earthy quality of a folk sound with the sophisticated harmony of modern jazz and the syncopated rhythms of the Caribbean. The Ensemble’s sound is not dominated by either of these genres but is defined by their intersection. Simply put: Tower of Power meets Pat Metheny meets Familia Cepeda meets “Mapeyé” meets Evel Knievel. A live stream will be found on Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. Check your preconceptions at the door, and enjoy the work of: Pedro J. Pastrana, Puerto Rican CuatroPedro is a music creator rethinking the concept…

Charlie Gurke, baritone saxophone Marcus Stephens, alto and tenor saxophones Josh Tower, bass Isaac Schwartz, drums Who doesn’t love the bari sax in jazz? One of San Francisco’s foremost bari practitioners will be in the house this Friday! Charlie Gurke is a keystone of the local jazz scene, leader of the famed Gurkestra — an elastic concept that puts many San Francisco talents to brilliant use in a variety of lovely settings! To our small stage, he brings a quartet once again for your pleasure. Jazz chamber music most pleasing to the senses. $20 cash cover charge at the door. Reservations welcome — call 415-586-3733. BYOB & a mask. A live stream will be found on Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. Your donations help fund the stream and, even more importantly, help us pay the musicians a guaranteed fair wage. Thanks for supporting jazz in SF! Here’s…

Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga/bongo player, and a writer of poetry, flash fiction and non-fiction. His writing has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies—more recently in Fiery Scribe, Third Wednesday and Fleas On The Dog. Ken Weichel has been writing and creating collages for the last fifty years. His latest book Azure, a collection of poems, was just published. He continues working and promoting the Book Arts, and has long operated Androgyne Books, an independent small press focused on the work of San Francisco and Bay Area poets and short story writers, as well as translations of modern Dutch poets. The press has its roots in the poetry magazine Androgyne, which published its first issue in 1971. Our monthly 1st Thursdays poetry series is booked and hosted by Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch. All are welcome to read in the open mic. Sign up prior to the…

On and on into the summer– CBop…Scott Foster…Rob Reich…Jimbo Trout…Kazemde George…Kathryn Takara & Friends…Joel Frahm…Judith Serin & Zack Rogow…Avotcja & Modupue…Tony Johnson…Lewis Jordan/Music at Large…Dysfunctional…Keith Hatschek…Sony & Jerry Holland…Citta di Vitti…Kai Lyons…Jayla Chee…Carolyn Davis…Joseph TinGin…books… and that’s just July… Check our events calendar. We’re booked through to the end of the year! Get on our mailing list! Click on the “newsletters” link in the navigation bar above to subscribe. Bird & Beckett is a guaranteed fair wage establishment, so bring some dough to the shows if you can afford it. If you can’t and you let us know, we’ll wave you in. But if you’ve got it, help us pay the talent! Culture. That’s the ticket! We offer a lot of it. You need it. We need it!  

Saxophonist and good friend Chuck Peterson passed this past Friday, February 18, 2022. Born February 8, 1931, he was 91 when he left us. Many of you have heard or lived some of Chuck’s story along the way. We know it imperfectly but we have a feel for it, for Chuck, for those who traveled a path alongside him. I met Chuck around the turn of the century… I opened Bird & Beckett in May 1999, and immediately a neighbor from around the corner, Blanche Bebb, a lover of literature if there ever was one, tuned in to what we were up to with this nascent bookshop. A friend of hers, Mary Goode, who’d often roust Blanche out for a few glasses of wine at Glen Park Station, noticed the jazz bent we seemed to exhibit. Mary’s husband, the late drummer John Markham–Johnny Markham, as he was known to his…