What a weekend! Thursday at 7pm – Poets Gail Mitchell and Bill Vartnaw, with an open mic to follow. Friday at 5:30pm – The Erik Jekabson Quartet. Trumpet & flugelhorn player / composer Jekabson provides originals for a crack combo, with Matt Clark, piano; Dan Feiszli, bass and Brian Fischler, drums. Friday at 8:30pm (not 9, as stated here and there) – CD Release: “House of Welcome” – Free Press Music is a project of singer Christie Aida in close association with drummer Dave Mihaly. Billy White, piano, and Annelies Zamula, saxophone. Saturday at 7:30pm – The Charlie McCarthy Quartet. NOTE: Charlie has fallen ill and can’t make the date. James Mahone, a terrific tenor player, will sub for him, under drummer Akira Tana’s leadership, with the great David Udolf, piano, and the young and talented Curtis Aikens, bass. Sunday at 2pm – Poet Jorge Argueta with Jose Cuellar (Dr.…

Seven spirited and talented student jazz musicians from Lick-Wilmerding High School, put the music through its paces for a 45-minute set beginning at 5pm. After a short break, a jam session follows, expressly offered to student musicians from all directions, hosted by the Akira Tana Trio, with Keith Saunders on piano and Eric Markowitz on drums. Whether you can make it to the show or not, please donate to help us pay the professional trio a guaranteed wage for their labors, and to gather an additional $175 as a donation to the Homeless Prenatal Program on behalf of the students in the combo. They’re participants in Lick-Wilmerding’s Public Purpose Program, which is partnering with the Homeless Prenatal Program this year, and have asked that their honorarium go to that important organization. All told, we’re looking for $625 this afternoon. Help us meet that hurdle!

Philosopher, theologian and Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, writes that Hafiz, “(t)his supreme poet, who is called ‘Tongue of the Invisible’ (Lisan al-ghayb), produced poems of magic beauty, poems whose imagery and music transmute the lead of the forgetful soul to the gold of the soul which lives in the longing for its Beloved and in the remembrance of that union which predates man’s terrestrial journey. Hafiz was himself aware that his was not simply a human voice. Rather, his poetry was a celestial song which brought the heavens themselves into a state of ecstasy.” Gary Gach presents poems of Hafiz crafted into English with Iranian short story writer and translator Erfan Mojib, newly published as Hafiz’s Little Book of Life (Hampton Roads, 2023).

Hurry down for an 8:30 start for the late show this Friday, as singer Christie Aida leads Free Press Music in a concert celebrating the band’s new recording, “House of Welcome, Vol.1.”  Check it out here. ——————————————————————– House of Welcome opened as a luxury hotel after the 1906 earthquake and lives on now as the Cadillac Hotel, operated by the nonprofit Reality House West to offer supportive services and housing to residents with few resources. House of Welcome remains the Cadillac’s signature concept in the present day. Many of the songs on Free Press Music’s new EP reflect FPM leader Christie Aida’s immersion as a volunteer for Reality House West, the nonprofit created by the late Leroy Looper and his wife Kathy Looper and other activists to make the Cadillac a refuge and a home for its residents. The stories, struggles and everyday life experiences of Tenderloin and SOMA residents…

Loralee Christensen, vocals Ricc Sandoval, guitar Henry Salvia, piano Paul Olguin, bass John Hanes, drums Byob and a twenty for the band. All ages welcome! Loralee is a soul singer well known and loved on the North Bay music scene for three decades or more. She’s performed with soul legend Bettye Lavette, Clarence Clemons (The E-Street Band), Mickey Thomas (The Starship, Elvin Bishop) and Johnny Colla (Huey Lewis & the News). Ricc Sandoval on guitar has been a mainstay on the Bay Area scene, playing with Katherine Chase, and most recently Shana Morrison. Drummer John Hanes plays a very active role in the local improv music scene, playing with the likes of Pihillip Greenleif, John Schott, Myles Boisen and many others. His work with Pearl Harbor and the Explosions is the stuff of legend. He also plays with Victor Krummenacher of Camper Van Beethoven & Monks of Doom fame. Henry…

Guitarist Brad Buethe leads a quartet with saxophonist Rob Sudduth, bassist Peter Barshay and drummer Jason Lewis, exploring each tune with the musical insight and freedom that comes of decades of experience traveling far beyond the boundaries of San Francisco, and the comfort of calling it home. $20; byob. Reservations, call 415-586-3733.  

Featuring vocalist Sandra Aran, Sondango brings you two generous sets of superbly crafted songs with deep grooves, playing salsa, samba, bolero, cumbia, ska and more. With music director Richard Nelson Hall on piano, Scott Foster on guitar, Dean Muench on bass and Dan Foltz on drums, Sondango will have you dancing in the aisles. Bring a twenty for the cover charge and something to sip. With an eye towards representing the grand diversity that is San Francisco, Richard and Sandra write their original songs in Spanish illustrating such common themes as love, loss, joy and passion. Strongly rooted in their love of jazz and Latin rhythms, Sondango brings together musicians from San Francisco, the East Bay and the Peninsula. Sondango embodies a meeting of cultures, and sensibilities with the here and now. After studying classical piano and composition at the National University of Mexico, Sandra completed her Bachelor of Arts…

Thursday, September 28th, Martin Nakell travels up from SoCal with Rebecca Goodman, where both teach creative writing at Chapman University’s Wilkinson College, to present prose and poetry at 7:30pm in the company of their friend Evan Burkin, himself a writer and an MFA student of creative writing at San Francisco State. Author of the manifesto “The Way of Chaos: Literary, Art, and Music Composition,” Nakell has published 18 books of fiction and poetry. Consciousness, his most recent collection of poems, was published in 2021 by Spuyten Duyvil Press. His forthcoming Martin Nakell Reader will come out from Spuyten Duyvil in 2024. “The content of Consciousness is language,” he says.”If the reader connects with the language, I will have done well.” Goodman has written three “fictions,” her latest being the recently published Forgotten Night (Spuyten Duyvil 2023), preceded by Aftersight (Spuyten Duyvil, 2015) and The Surface of Motion (Green Integer, 2008).…

9/27, 7:30 – David Kubrin book event – Marxism & Witchcraft. With Francisco Herrera.David Kubrin, genial and brilliant philosopher of art, science, community and social evolution, comes over — with his friend Francisco Herrera providing guitar and song — to present his book Marxism & Witchcraft. Starhawk notes that, “Marxism and Witchcraft is a vitally important book, a tremendous resource for anyone interested in the question ‘How did we get into this mess?’“At this time of environmental meltdown, Kubrin’s careful analysis of how and why the mechanistic model was imposed on science, philosophy and Western culture is vital to our understanding what we must do to transform it. To see the world as alive again, infused with vitality and spirit, we must also confront the violence with which that worldview was stamped out — the Witch persecutions that assaulted women’s power and traditional modes of healing, the genocide against indigenous…

All welcome! Musicians, be our guests. Audience, help us pay the trio! Bring a twenty if you’re able, and consider donating to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project, the 501(c)3 we use to fund our music, poetry and other cultural programming. That’s what makes it work when audiences can’t carry the burden of paying the talent. We’ve got a lot of talent in San Francisco, spanning the generations.

Raquel Baena – trombone and vocals Justin Flynn – saxophones Dan Neville – marimba and vibraphone Andres Fonseca – drums and percussion Juan Sebastian Monsalve – bass and musical director $20-$30 sliding scale cover charge; byob. Balsa de Fuego gathers Panhispanic rhythms and music such as Cumbia, Joropo & Currulao and bends them and blends them using lots of resources and sounds from jazz and the community vibe of Terraza 7 in Queens, resulting in a truly New York flavored collage. This new project lead by Colombian composer Juan Sebastian Monsalve (known as one of the precursors of the New Colombian Music with his band Curupira) assembles a diverse range of musicians from the New York music scene, achieving a powerful contemporary sound with strong roots in tradition.  

Noel Jewkes, reeds and flute Grant Levin, piano Chris Amberger, bass Josh Setala, drums $20 cash cover charge, byob For reservations, call 415-586-3733 Noel Jewkes is a legend among Bay Area jazz fans for his six-plus decades on the scene as a master of the tenor saxophone and any number of allied instruments, a disciple of the great Lester Young, an expert in swing. Come hear him with a rhythm section comprising long-time associates Grant Levin on piano and Chris Amberger on bass together with the young drummer Josh Setala. Jazz the way we like it!     In Noel’s five decades here on the coast, he’s been called on to work with singers from Rosemary Clooney to Billy Eckstein to Jon Hendricks, in blues-rock bands with Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenitis, in the all-female rock band Ace of Cups, in the jump blues outfit led by Lavay Smith and…

Lew Tabackin, flute & tenor saxophone Essiet Okon Essiet, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums $20 cash cover charge; byob Reservations, call 415-586-3733 In transit between an 8-date/12-day tour in Japan and a booking at the Monterey Jazz Festival, master musician Lew Tabackin stops off at Bird & Beckett in San Francisco for a trio date. From the MJF notes: Lew Tabackin, flutist and tenor saxophonist, is an artist of astonishing vision. His electrifying flute playing is at once virtuosic, primordial, cross-cultural, and passionate. His distinctive tenor sax style includes the use of wide intervals, abrupt changes of mood and tempo, and purposeful fervor, all in the service of showing the full range of possibilities of his instrument — melodically, rhythmically, and dynamically. Without copying or emulating jazz greats of the past, Mr. Tabackin has absorbed elements into his style, ultimately creating his own sound and aura. His interest in music began…

Bob Kenmotsu, tenor saxophone Keith Saunders, piano Eric Markowitz, bass Tony Johnson, drums $20 suggested donation; byob for reservations, call 415-586-3733 Drummer Tony Johnson’s monthly 4th Fridays residency continues! His quartet features musicians with long experience in San Francisco, New York, St. Louis and internationally. Tony arrived in San Francisco from Australia in 1959 and hit the ground swingin’, recording in 1960 with vocalist Bev Kelly, live at the Coffee Gallery on Grant Street in North Beach, engineered by Willy Heider, produced by Orrin Keepnews and released by Riverside Records. He’s never stopped since.