Friday, November 18 – 7:30pm – $20 – BYOB Scott Foster joins forces with the Vince Lateano Trio Scott Foster, guitar Ben Stolorow, piano Peter Barshay, bass Vince Lateano, drums

  Pedal steel master Joe Goldmark, who has more recordings to his credit than a catfish has whiskers, leads a crackerjack combo playing America’s other classical music, in cahoots with Mitch Polzak, Hank Maninger and Kenny Owen. And yes, you can view it in the stream, but it’s much more lively in person down here in Glen Park. BYOB and a twenty for the band! Seating at 4:45 for the 5pm show. BYOB and a twenty for the band! For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Also live streamed on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations while watching online help us pay the musicians and support the stream.

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 and lesser-known workers, the everyday people who help make this place we call home, live streamed from Bird & Beckett Books. November 13, at 10 a.m., Denise and Josiah Luis Alderete will have a conversation from our stage in a live stream viewable on the Bird & Beckett Facebook page and YouTube channel. During the pandemic, poet Alderete, joined forces with a couple of friends and fulfilled a long held vision: To open a bookstore in the Mission District. Medicine for Nightmares is not only a bookstore; it’s a gallery and community space with a commitment to supporting the local literary and arts community and its historically Spanish-speaking neighborhood, 24th Street in San Francisco. Alderete’s recent poetry collection Baby Axolotls y…

Radical organizer and Chicago alderman Helen Shiller presents Daring to Stuggle, Daring to Win: Five Decades of Resistance in Chicago’s Uptown Community (Haymarket Books, 2022), her book about Chicago resistance politics. Helen Shiller went from radical anti-war activist in Wisconsin, to a member of a collective of white allies of the Black Panther Party in Chicago, to an elected city council person who helped break the back of the racialized opposition to Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor. Early on, Shiller was deeply engaged in the fight against the gentrification of a unique economically and racially mixed Chicago community on the Northside. With insight into historic community organizing and political battles in Chicago from the 1970s through 2010, her book details numerous policy fights and conflicts in Chicago during that time, illuminating recurrent political themes and battles that remain relevant to this day. Also live streamed on our YouTube channel…

The jaded hopes and wistful dreams of Rolf Wilkinson, vocals, guitar and compositions Safa Shokrai, bass Vamaken Bedrosian, trombone. Check the Tin Cup Serenade website for insight! Tonight, doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30pm show. BYOB and a twenty for the trio. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Also live streamed on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations while watching online help us pay the musicians and support the stream.

Domingo & Friends, harkening back to a golden era of R&B, blues and soul. When Domingo Balinton was a lad, the Fillmore District was in its full “Harlem of the West” mode, and he had the run of the neighborhood alongside his big sister, who we know as Sugar Pie DeSanto, and their cousin Jamesetta Hawkins, better known to posterity as Etta James! Domingo Balinton, bass Lorraine Balinton, vocals Richard Cruz, keys Tim Landis, guitar Will Young, drums Friday, November 11 – 7:30pm – $20 cover charge BYOB – reservations, call 415-586-3733 Live in the shop and live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations support the musicians and the stream.  

“A deeply nuanced world — Jonas crafts a richly expansive sound that stresses subtle timbral shadings and tersely composed phrases punctuated by sudden bursts of flavorful improvisation… Distinctive, accessible, simple and achingly beautiful.” – Michael Kremer, Jazziz The Chris Jonas Trio: Music from the Deserts explores the music Jonas wrote over two months of camping alone in January of 2021 and 2022 in very remote Sonora Desert places, including Arizona’s Barry Goldwater Missile Range. Music from Deserts will contain some elements of a traditional jazz trio, but will display colors and sounds outside the usual domains of jazz, mixing elements that are quirky, delicate, weirdly groovy, polyphonic, and a mixture of the disjointed and melodic. The trio this evening will comprise Chris Jonas, on soprano and tenor saxophone, joined by two deeply innovative musicians from the Bay Area, Lisa Mezzacappa on bass and Jordan Glenn on drums (n.b, Jason Levis,…

Friends and family gather to celebrate the life of Ellen Wall (October 23, 1939-March 11, 2022), an English professor at City College of San Francisco for 34 years who had a profound impact on a great number of San Franciscans across generations and cultures. At 3:30pm, you’re welcome to meet at Ellen’s house at 225 Edna Street, just a short block from the main campus of City College, for a walk to the CCSF campus library on Cloud Circle — a walk Ellen made thousands of time during her career. A toast to Ellen’s generous, creative spirit will ensue there at about 4pm. The gathering at the bookshop, in nearby Glen Park, will follow at 5pm. Bird & Beckett is a block and a half from the Glen Park BART station, on Chenery Street between Diamond and Castro. You are, of course, welcome to simply come to the bookshop at…

The first Sunday of each month, Bird & Beckett is proud and pleased to host a jazz combo comprising students from a local college or high school opening the program, followed by a student jam session led by a professional trio. Co-produced and underwritten by Jazz in the Neighborhood and Bird & Beckett, the students in the combos receive a small stipend and the professional musicians receive a guaranteed fair wage. This time out, it’s a jazz combo from Urban High, over in the Haight! Immensely talented kids, learning the ropes there under the direction of Bird & Beckett’s favorite guitar player, Scott Foster — Urban’s Performing Arts Department Chair! Stick around after the combo’s set for a jam session led by drummer Akira Tana, with Keith Saunders on piano and Peter Barshay on bass — top-rank professional players from three generations. If you can’t make it into the shop,…

Karl Evangelista-guitar Francis Wong-saxophone Lisa Mezzacappa-bass Donald Robinson-drums $20 cover charge. BYOB. Live in the shop and live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. Your kind donations support the musicians and the stream. Filipino-American guitarist/composer Karl Evangelista presents Apura (Tagalog for “Very Urgent”), a project that explores the relationship between jazz-based musical improvisation and social transformation in an era of worldwide political upheaval. Karl Evangelista’s Apura celebrates the power of creative music as a weapon of struggle. Apura uses original composition and daring improvised sounds to explore the passionate, embattled culture of the Philippines – Evangelista’s ancestral home. Along the way, Evangelista pays homage to the imposing legacies of American free jazz and South African improvised music. This occasion marks Apura’s only 2022 performance, featuring Asian Improv aRts cofounder Francis Wong (saxophone), enterprising bassist Lisa Mezzcappa (bass), and Bay Area great Donald Robinson (drums). The ensemble…

Eric Scheide, saxophone Tom Disher, piano Tom Donald, bass Ramon Cairo, drums Latin & funk-infused jazz, heavy on originals in the vein of Horace Silver, Bill Evans and a panoply of influences. Once known as the Jazz Beaus, it’s the same four fellas with a new name and new music — a little jazz, a little funk, a little Latin, all mixed together for a good time. $20 cover charge. BYOB. Live in the shop and live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch host featured poets (and in this case, prose fiction writers), on the first Thursday of each month, with an open mic following the featured readers. Live in the shop and live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. Tobey Hiller is the author of six books: a novel, four collections of poetry—the latest CROW MIND from Finishing Line Press—and, most recently, a book of short stories, FLIGHT ADVICE; A FABULARY, from Unlikely Books, which she’ll be reading from tonight.   Tobey was a finalist for Omnidawn’s 2019 Fantasy Contest. Her stories have won prizes as well as ending up (frustratingly) on short lists. Her poetry and flash can be found in a variety of magazines and anthologies, for instance Ambush Review, Askew, Spillway, Mediterranean Poetry, Shotglass Journal, The Fabulist: Words & Art, Sin Fronteras/Writers without Borders, great weather for MEDIA as well…

Vince Lateano, drums Peter Barshay, bass Ben Stolorow, piano All jazz players welcome to take the stage. Or just come to listen. No cover charge. If you can’t make it into the shop, you can catch the live stream on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help pay the trio and support the stream are much appreciated! Bird & Beckett adheres to the guaranteed fair wage standard promoted by the Independent Musicians Alliance.

Noertker’s Moxie Annelise Zamula – tenor sax, flute, clarinet.Brett Carson – piano.Jason Levis – drums.Bill Noertker – contrabass, compositions.Tonight Noertker’s Moxie will be debuting some selections from a work-in-progress—a series of odd little ditties inspired by Samuel Beckett’s odd little novel Watt. The show will be recorded in anticipation of an upcoming “Noertker’s Moxie Live at Bird and Beckett” CD. Bassist/composer Bill Noertker has been active in the Bay Area jazz and avant-garde scene since the late 1980s. Since 2001, he has lead his own ensemble, Noertker’s Moxie, as a forum for compositions inspired by visual art, architecture, poetry, cinema, and sculpture. These compositions provide a framework for improvisation that is both melodic and textural; with an emphasis on creative, free-ranging interplay amongst the musicians. If you can’t make it into the shop, you can catch the live stream on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help…