Master storyteller, able interlocutor of literary ancestors, Walker Brents III delves into Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s fairy tale, groping in its lessons to get inside what it teaches, exploring the formative affinity he senses in it to the way consciousness actually goes along, seeking once again the place to which he’s always returned. Corollary themes of this endeavor, says Walker, include anthroposophy, Schiller’s insights into the education of the aesthetic sense, and the French Revolution, and some flashes of the Illuminati as well, prior to their being stirred so deeply into the collective cultural soup. Walker’s talks, monthly but for June and July when he travels the west once again, have been delivered only in our live stream since the beginning of the “special period” we have endured so long. Now, we can host a small audience in the shop. Call for a reservation: 415-586-3733. Or just grab a friend…

San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita Kim Shuck conducts a poetry reading on Zoom twice a month. Second Mondays include two featured readers and an open mic. On the fourth Monday of each month, the format is all open mic.  Zoom in and add your voice! Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84350265713?pwd=eE84V3BYdWxiSFBHNHhmdUt1WTUzdz09 Meeting ID: 843 5026 5713 Passcode: 244211

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.

From the high deserts of western Colorado comes Danny Rosen, a poet, publisher, and bookseller after our own heart, whose Lithic Press has published a wealth of fine poetry, prose and art books in recent years, and whose bookstore and gallery of the same name in Fruita, CO has been the site of many great readings and exhibitions. Joining him on the Bird & Beckett stage will be the inimitable wordsmith and drummer Clark Coolidge, and writer and City Lights editor Garrett Caples, as well as poet, biographer, and emcee for the day, Neeli Cherkovski. More about the poets: Each morning Danny Rosen pees on the bank of the largest unnamed tributary to the East Branch of Big Salt Wash which flows into the Colorado River several miles below Fruita, Colorado. Early on he learned to swing a hammer and that changed everything. He has been a poet, publisher, teacher,…

Dave Tidball, alto sax. Charlie Keagle, tenor sax. Henry Hung, trumpet. Peter Barshay, bass. David Rokeach, drums. $25 cover charge / byob. reservations: call the shop at 415-586-3733. Tidball5 plays three-horn arrangements of alto player Dave Tidball’s compositions that he’s arranged for an ensemble with no chord-playing instrument (such as piano or guitar). Soloists are accompanied and supported by textures and lines of the non-soloing horns, along with the rhythm section. More from Dave: “I had a seven-piece band in Boston which was fun – I enjoy writing for multiple horns. In the 90s I formed Threedom, a trio which included bassist Bill Douglass and drummer Robert Kaufman, reveling in the freedom of that format. This new group is like an amalgamation of those two worlds” Dave, a multi-reed instrumentalist, arranger and composer born in Wales, became active in the London jazz scene in the 1970s, recording two albums and…

three avatars of the san francisco cultural stew invite you to come browse the stacks and buy some books. it’s the only way we’re going to dig out of this mess, and the plumping of the cash drawer is their intent in gathering you here today. we ourselves will content ourselves with ringing up the sales, humming along quietly, nodding sagely at the wisdom of their observations. know thyself, they say, but we say we’ll leave that to them what’s got a better perspective. we’ll take the sally field position on the matter. we’re just happy to be an outpost on the city’s cocktail circuit, where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life, to get the feel of life… the fray can wait.

Come out for the funkified soul of Jairo Vargas, Eli Goldlink, Bil Hagar and Pat Korte Rojai in the Pocket! $20 cover / byob  

It all started back at the turn of the century… we fell into conversation with the bassist John Clark, flipping through the jazz record bins, and the next thing we knew, we’d agreed on presenting a trio on a Friday evening a few weeks hence. John arrived with veteran drummer Vince Lateano and the pianist Lee Bloom, who brought along an electric keyboard… A few weeks later, one of Lee’s piano students, Jon Anderson, assembled a trio with his buddy Andrew Kelsey, George & Evelyn’s kid from up on Miguel Street… Not long after that, Eric Shifrin set up his keyboard with a trio. The neighbors clamored for more, especially Blanche Bebb’s friend Mary Goode… The proprietor told ’em, we gotta pay the musicians,  you know…  and that got serious when a retired tenor sax player from up on Martha Street, Chuck Peterson, heard from Mary that Bird & Beckett…

RDL+ celebrates the release of their five-album CD set “Bay Area Bridges” with an intimate concert at Bird & Beckett. Ruthie Dineen (piano) Doug Lee (bass) Luis Salcedo (guitar) $20 cover charge (cash, please); byob To reserve a seat, call 415-586-3733 RDL+, conceived and developed its “Bay Area Bridges” series in a 4-year residency at Studio Grand in Oakland as an evolving encounter with guests artists focused on original composition and collaboration, spanning jazz, classical and many other influences, moving from solo to trio and up to large ensemble based on the individual and collective artistic inspiration of the musicians. Tonight, they perform with special guests to celebrate that project and the resultant, newly released five-CD set. “We are interested in being creative and full musicians, both on on our own and as a group. When we come together, it feels right; seamless, exhilarating and meaningful all at once.” Beginning…

Patrick Cahill (The Machinery of Sleep), Gerald Fleming (The Choreographer), Carolyn Miller (Light, Moving), Eliot Schain (The Distant Sound) read poems from their Sixteen Rivers Press titles and new work.  

Vince Lateano has been a key musician in San Francisco jazz since the mid-1960s. Every third Sunday, you’ll catch his trio at Bird & Beckett– and on the last Sunday of each month, serious jazz musicians, accomplished and aspiring both, are invited to a jam session led by the trio. Either way, byob and a twenty for the band if you’re able. No one turned away for lack of funds, but check between the seat cushions and bring what you can. We’ll make sure the trio is paid, ‘though as Slim will attest, it’s even better when you help.

And yes, it’s a benefit for your beleaguered tho’ resurgent ‘n re-emergent jazz ‘n literary lounge, so bring yr checkbook! Whether it’s $10 you can contribute or $100, be the icing on this particular little birthday cake… Bird & Beckett’s music programming is 21 years old this year! Peter Case lit out from Buffalo, New York in 1973, age 18, in a blizzard, on a midnight bus headed west. That spring in San Francisco, you’d find him among the brilliant street musicians of the city, day and night, wailing on his guitar, singing with a voice that ricocheted off the storefronts and across the traffic lanes. You’d see him and hear him all over town, in the Mission, in the Tenderloin, and for a good, long stretch on the southeast corner opposite the Condor and City Lights every night of the week, busking alongside scuffling players and sterling veterans like…

duo B. vs. SPELUNKER enter the Bird & Beckett arena Saturday, August 19th at 5pm! $20 cover charge, byob. Reservations – 415-586-3733. New original trio music and covers by creative music heroes Threadgill, Braxton and more! The Bay Area improvising drums and bass duo of Jason Levis and Lisa Mezzacappa, as duo B., joins forces with Italian saxophonist Piero Bon Bittolo, aka SPELUNKER (boasting a new album by that name). Together, they’ll whip up a program of new compositions composed by members of the trio, plus new arrangements of music by creative jazz luminaries. As duo B., Mezzacappa and Levis have explored the farthest reaches of wide-open improvisation and gnarly composition for more than 15 years, immersing themselves in the music of Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, Cecil Taylor, Wadada Leo Smith, and others, and releasing three records. They are a first-call rhythm section backing up local jazz heroes such as…

Saxophonist Marcus Stephens is picking the tunes for your happy hour jazz pleasure, fronting the combo Scott Foster has assembled especially for the occasion, with Matt Montgomery on bass and Michael Mitchell on drums. You’re in for two generous sets of music for a mid-August minute before school’s back in session. BYOB and a twenty for the band! Whatever your wallet will allow! Take a quick break when they finish at 8, and then hurry back at 8:30 for Mean to Me, a Bird & Beckett favorite, with Scott joining vocalist Judy Butterfield, pianist/saxophonist Ben Slater, bassist Tom Edler and drummer Cairo McCockran performing tunes from the ’20s to the ’40s mixed with bop, soul & latin jazz. Bring a twenty for each of these fine bands, and something to sip, and kick back for a Glen Park pause before the world starts down that road back to the salt…

A fantastic variety of music to choose from. You’ll most always be on the mark if you byob and a twenty for the band. And you can call to reserve a seat for any of these shows – 415-586-3733. Coming off our Thursday benefit thrown by nine stellar classical musicians (if you count Yuzoh the singing dog who, truth be told, sings along only to bluegrass), we have a cavalcade of six dates over the next three days! Our Friday happy hour show this week (5:30-8pm) is Eric Shifrin’s second Fridays residency, with the In Crowd comprising a trio this time out, and what a fun & fantastic little trio it is — Eric on piano, Ari Munkres on bass and Mark Lee on drums. Guaranteed pleasure! Bring a twenty for the band and something to sip! If you’re squeezing every dollar ’til the eagle grins, then just bring what…