David James presents a work-in-development, Mission Rebel No. 1., a musical examination of his father, Rev. Jesse James, written for, and performed by the sextet GPS: David James – guitar, voice.Beth Custer – clarinets, voice.Alan Williams – trombone, voice.Keith Lawrence – viola, voice.Lisa Mezzacappa – bass.John Hanes – drums. BYOB and cash for the $20 cover charge. Doors open at 6:45pm for the show. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733 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 musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! Bird & Beckett adheres to the guaranteed fair wage standard promoted by the Independent Musicians Alliance. This project is supported by the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Ben Davis, cello Erik Jekabson, trumpet James Fei, soprano and alto sax Jordan Glenn, drums BYOB and cash for the $20 cover charge. Doors open at 7:20pm for the show. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733 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 musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! Bird & Beckett adheres to the guaranteed fair wage standard promoted by the Independent Musicians Alliance. Last heard at Bird & Beckett in April 2022, Ben Davis’s Bay Area group has expanded from a trio to a quartet with the addition of reed player James Fei. Compositional structures, lines and wild loose grooves are gauged open and explored in impassioned play between instruments—gut-wrenching dissonance to sonorous deep tones. This new Bay Area group was brought together by…

Paul Corman-Roberts stands in as host of tonight’s reading for regular host Kim Shuck, who’s out on tour with her poetry. Two featured readers followed by open mic tonight. See the zoom info below. On the fourth Friday, come back for an all-open reading! Tonight, here’s what you need to know: Linda Noel is a Native Californian of the Koyungkowi tribe who grew up in Willits. The former Poet Laureate of Ukiah has presented her work at various venues across the western United States and has most recently been both a featured reader and workshop presenter at the Redwood Coast Writers Conference, the Watershed Project, The Conference of American Indians; Humboldt State University, and Santa Rosa Junior College to name a few. Her work has been published in a variety of magazines, journals and anthologies including The Dirt is Red Here, by Heyday Books. She will be included in the…

New album, new date at Bird & Beckett. Country music, sweet, tart and pretty. Bring your sweetie, or just bring yourself, and bring a twenty for the band. Byob, if you care to. Bird & Beckett is a guaranteed fair wage venue; your cover charge stakes us to the band’s guarantee. Can’t make it to the show? View it live on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help pay the musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! But nothing beats making the trek into the shop to be with the musicians and hear them up close and personal. It’s a beautiful thing.

SF Lives Live Talk: Ericka Scott, Director of Projects with the African American Cultural District in conversation with journalist Denise Sullivan Catch the live stream on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. Tune in at 10am to watch it live, or watch anytime in the archive at the same links. 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. Ericka Scott is the Director of Projects with the African American Cultural District in San Francisco. Born and raised in the historic Fillmore District/Western Addition we’ll talk with Scott about her multiple roles as a small business owner of Honey Art Studio, where she hosts art and fashion…

Tammy  is just the best! Tonight, she’s in the company of bassist Brian Juárez and drummer Brandon Farmer. Two sets of soul satisfying music. Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30pm show. $20 cash cover charge Bird & Beckett is a guaranteed fair wage venue; your cover charge stakes us to the band’s guarantee. BYOB Can’t make it to the show? View it live on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help pay the musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! But nothing beats making the trek into the shop to be with the musicians and hear them up close and personal. It’s a beautiful thing.

Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30pm show. $20-25 cash cover charge; sliding scale. Bird & Beckett is a guaranteed fair wage venue: your cover charge stakes us to the band’s guarantee. BYOB Can’t make it to the show? View it live on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Your donations to help pay the musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! Saxophonist/flutist/composer Jean Fineberg’s latest quintet features first-call keyboardist Frank Martin,  5-album guitarist Nancy Wenstrom, Pride & Joy bassist Marc Levine and Cold Blood drummer T. Moran. The ensemble will perform tunes from Jean’s latest album, Jean Fineberg & JAZZphoria, which is currently enjoying airplay on more than 50 radio stations, including the Bay area’s KSCM. Bandleader Jean Fineberg has performed and/or recorded on more than 40 albums, including stints with Melba Liston, David Bowie, Laura Nyro, Cornell Dupree, Mo’fone and The Montclair Women’s Big Band. Her compositions…

The featured poets tonight are Greg Pond and Tony Aldarondo. An open mic, hosted by Jerry Ferraz and Michael Koch follows.  Our ongoing series is scheduled for the first Thursday of every month, with the doors opening at 6:45pm for the 7pm reading. You can also view the reading live on our Facebook page or YouTube channel   Greg Pond has written four books of poetry: “aftermoon“ – “Blackened Blue” – “4:00 a.m. (DARK)” and “4:00 a.m. LIGHT).” He is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade, board member of Clarion Performing Arts Center, curator for Queer Rebels, and volunteers as facilitator of Poetically Speaking, a weekly conference-call program for seniors.   Tony Aldarondo has performed music and poetry in venues throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, overseas and once while standing up on a Jet Blue airplane! He is also a theater and film actor and voice-over artist. Tony…

Avotcja, poet and prose writer, musician, musicologist, dj and cultural warrior, has just brought out With Every Step I Take 2 (Taurean Horn Press, 2022). Join us at Bird & Beckett for a publication party and help us celebrate with Avotcja and master percussionist & steel pan wizard Val Serrant. No charge! Donations appreciated. Call for a reservation: 415-586-3733 The event can also be found in a live stream, and can also be viewed later in the archive, on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Your donations help us to pay the artists and to meet the expenses of streaming. “Introducing herself as storyteller, ‘wild woman,’ a ‘bonafide sound junkie,’ nothing slows or dampens Avotcja’s passion for the power and wonder of music. Guided by ancient, ancestral wisdom, she refuses to separate poetry and storytelling from song or dance. In ‘Blue To the Bone,’ her rhapsodic tribute to Oakland’s uncrowned poet…

Phillip Greenlief saxophones Adriana Camacho Torres, bass Scott Amendola, drums $20 cash cover charge at the door BYOB The live stream can be found on our Facebook page or YouTube channel Mexico City born, raised and based bassist Adriana Camacho Torres takes improvised music wherever it wants to go in the company of local heroes Phillip Greenlief and Scott Amendola on saxophones and drums, respectively. Phillip Greenlief was born in Los Angeles in 1959. Scott Amendola was born in New Jersey in 1963. Each has been in the Bay Area for three to four decades. Two Bay Area musicians with global reputations. Such are the musicians we can boast of here, and such are the international connections they provide. Read an interview with Adriana here. Visit her website here.

Dig the vibes! Erik von Buchau, vibraphone Matt Clark, piano Giulio Cetto, bass Jeff Marrs, drums BYOB and a twenty for the band! For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733 Also live streamed on our Facebook page and YouTube channel Your donations help us pay the musicians a guaranteed fair wage. Here’s a taste! Catch Erik at the 11:30 mark!  

You’ll find Walker’s Talk on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Please donate to help us pay Walker for his heroic & eloquent locution. Tonight, Walker Brents III delves into the thought of Henry David Thoreau, whose genius lay in seeing nature for itself, with no need to be any other thing. We grow spontaneously in our understanding as we read him, which is why the cosmos arising from his pages strangely resonates with our own, in all we see and do not see. His gift to us is an awareness of the value of education as it relates to the needs of the living mind. The world before us is inexhaustible in what it can teach us, and in the ways we can learn to protect it.

  Free blues & boogie woogie tonight! No cover charge! The German Consulate of San Francisco has offered to sponsor a free performance by renowned boogie woogie and blues pianist Frank Muschalle for your listening pleasure! Mr. Muschalle has been touring worldwide for three decades to all points of the compass, spreading boogie woogie pleasure wherever he finds a good piano, and Bird & Beckett has one for him! Come sample his wares, courtesy of our friends at the Consulate! Doors open at 7:15 for the 7:30pm show. Get a taste of Frank’s boogie woogie from the video below. Visit his website here (in English) or here (auf Deutsch).  

No cover charge. Donations help us maintain the tradition and pay the trio! Come prepared if you want to play!

Piano jazz by the deep, soulful and wonderful Rudi Mwongozi is one of our favorite things! Click on the youtube link below for a blazing and wonderful trio rendition of “My Favorite Things” from an outdoor performance at a lovely & festive NYC Eid-Al-Fatir celebration in 2017. A master musician thriving on the vibe. Rudi will play a solo set at Bird & Beckett Sunday the 25th at 5pm. Don’t miss it! $5 to $25 sliding scale cover charge requested. All ages welcome. Call ahead to reserve a seat at 415-586-3733.