Ben Davis, cello Erik Jekabson, trumpet Jordan Glenn, drums 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 cellist Ben Davis to probe the thin line between composition and improvisation. The improvs are open thematic, composed material embedded within solos. Each musician plays a role in both leading and accompanying. $20 cash cover charge at the door; doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show. BYOB and a mask (the wearing of which is optional if you’re vaccinated). Live in the shop! You can also take it in live streamed on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. Donate if you can! Ben Davis found a musical community in the F-ire Collective which came together in London in the mid-1990s; his chamber jazz group Basquiat Strings (a string quartet plus bass…

Walker Brents III muses on the presence of divinities in poetic thought processes, implicit and explicit in the myth of the god Hermes. Walker addresses the mysteries of the poets & the gods, the philosophers & the folktellers in a livestream from Bird & Beckett on the last Thursday of each month, August through May… This evening will be his last talk of the season before hitting the road for the summer. Donate to help us reward Walker for his heroic efforts of imagination, study and interpretive craftsmanship. At the appointed hour, find his talk livestreamed on our YouTube channel or Facebook page.

Legends of San Francisco’s 1980s, ’90s et seq, from the days when Dogpatch was all about the Club Foot, Valencia Street’s Elbo Room had all the elbow room it needed and you could count on a supermodel to buy into a club down on Folsom where they could cook up the acid jazz for the carriage trade! Guitarist Will Bernard was on that Folsom Street scene at the Up & Down Club in the early 1990s, as the acid jazz of the Broun Fellinis and Alphabet Soup blossomed in spots all over town alongside the Berkeley High musicians, including Bernard, in Peter Apfelbaum’s Heiroglyphics Ensemble and numerous other aggregations, and soon spawning Charlie Hunter’s breakout band, T. J. Kirk, with John Schott and Scott Amendola  alongside Hunter and Bernard. Bernard, and Hunter, left for New York around then, but Bernard is back from time to time, certainly when the Club…

BB Zoom is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Bird and Beckett Online Open Mic! Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime 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

Akira Tana, drums; Peter Barshay, bass; and Ben Stolorow, piano are the rhythm section for a jam session, holding it down for the horn players that make it out and yielding their own instruments to those bold enough to ask. It’s become a last Sunday of the month tradition. Jazz as it’s played in San Francisco in 2022! No charge, but any donations you can make to help us meet the rhythm section’s guarantee will be much appreciated. No live stream tonight. If you want to play, you can’t do it from home. And if you want to hear it, you’ll just have to come out down to the shop!

Patrick Wolff has assembled an all-star sextet to assay a bunch of new tunes and arrangements from the pen of PDub himself! Mike Olmos, trumpet Matt Renzi, reeds Patrick Wolff, reeds Richard Sears, piano Marcus Shelby, bass Gerald Cleaver, drums $30 cover charge Call for reservations, 415-586-3733 BYOB and a mask if unvaxxed Read here on this sextet, as written up by jazz journalist Andrew Gilbert. Gilbert writes, “(Patrick Wolff’s) latest endeavor is a talent-packed sextet that debuts this weekend at the Sound Room in Oakland on April 22 and at San Francisco’s Bird & Beckett Books and Records on April 24 (both shows will also be livestreamed). He documented an earlier incarnation of the band in 2011 on two captivating albums, Noose of Light and Your Obedient Ghost, which feature his intricate, intertwining compositions. “(Wolff’s) impetus for jumping back into the sextet fray is the Bay Area presence of drummer…

original music in the style of latin jazz fusion Thomas Molina, trumpet Josh Icban, guitar Jeff Patterson, bass Jimmy Toor, drums Adrian Areas, Moperc tumbadoras $25 cash cover charge. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show BYOB and a mask. Live in the shop! You can also take it in live streamed on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. Donate if you can!  

Mr. CT brings a fine quartet for your pleasure… Downtown Danny Brown on tenor saxophone, Greg Jacobs on piano and Omar Aran on drums. Swing, bop and then some! $20 cash cover charge at the door. BYOB and a mask if you’re unvaxxed, otherwise it’s up to you. And, yes, it’s streamed. You’ll find it on our youtube channel and our facebook page. A donation to support the stream — and to help us meet the musicians’ guarantees — is only right, and is much appreciated if you take in any substantial portion of it. If not you, who? Thanks! You make it possible.

Drummer Tony Johnson brings in a quartet on the fourth Friday of each month, and tonight it’s the 230 Jones Street Band, with Charlie McCarthy, saxophone & flute Glen Deardorff, guitar Al Obidinski, bass Tony Johnson, drums. Four veteran jazz players, and long-time friends, swingin’. $20 cash cover charge; byob & a mask if unvaxxed. 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!

Jeff Hamilton, piano Clint Baker, brass and reeds Mikiya Matsuda, bass Jessica King, vocal Experts in classic swing and traditional jazz take the stage for a stroll through wonderful material from the early years of the music, plus a scattering of charming originals from Jeff. BYOB, a mask and $20 cash for the cover charge. Live in the shop, of course, and also streamed on YouTube and Facebook. If you view a substantial part of the evening online, please donate if you’re able. Your donations help us pay the musicians a fair wage, and also help to make the stream viable. Many thanks to our many supporters who donate habitually and generously! New donors fill our sails as we forge on and are hugely appreciated! Together with those coming out in person and paying the cover charges, you make Bird & Beckett’s programming possible!

Guitarist Scott Foster brings Bruce Ackley back to the stage with David Brandt on drums, and with the addition of Pete Schmitt on bass. They’ll be expanding on a trio foray into Ackley’s original compositions that began here in January 17th, in the winter of the year… a deep dive into Ackley’s fascinating musical mind. Scott has been a cornerstone of the B&B jazz edifice from the start, 20 years and counting! BYOB, a mask and $20 cash for the cover charge. Live in the shop, of course, and also streamed on YouTube and Facebook. If you view a substantial part of the evening online, please donate if you’re able. Your donations help us pay the musicians a fair wage, and also help to make the stream viable. Many thanks to our many supporters who donate habitually and generously! New donors fill our sails as we forge on and are…

The late great poet Al Young said of Avotcja, “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 laureate, Reginald Lockett (1947-2008), musician-poet-broadcaster Avotcja could just as well be describing her own esthetic. ‘Reggie was the real deal,’ she croons. Melodically keyed to what she calls ‘la palabra musical,’ Avotcja’s rhythmic testament–decades in the making–celebrates the world-changing spirit of human creativity while condemning its cold-blooded, tone-deaf assassins.” Avotcja’s poems through 2013, along with prose fiction and other writings, are collected in her book With Every Step I Take (Taurean Horn Press). Kelliane Parker’s collection of poems Down the Foggy Streets of My Mind: Portal to Dissociation, was recently…

Pianist Art Lande is a legendary and unique figure on the jazz landscape, has been so for five decades or more, and we’re pleased & honored to present him again at Bird & Beckett tonight, this time in the context of a trio that has been coming together to create some beautiful music for the past ten years. The centerpiece of tonight’s performance is a project of the saxophonist Carl Schultz, with Art and guitarist Tim Wendel, evidenced by the newly released cd “ACT reAct”, recorded in Denver, Colorado on July 30/31, 2020. The trio is presenting their music in three dates this weekend around the Bay Area, of which the Bird & Beckett date is the last before they return to their respective bases. Catch them before they’re gone! _______ BYOB, a mask and $20 cash for the cover charge. Doors open at 7:20pm for the 7:30 show. For…

Kelley Cutler has worked with the unhoused population in San Francisco for the last 20 years. She accompanied Lelani Farha, United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, on Farha’s 2018 visit to San Francisco to observe and assess the human rights emergencies on our streets. From that visit, Farha found the City to be in violation of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Read journalist Denise Sullivan’s January 2022 SF Examiner piece on the recent Tenderloin Emergency Plan, drawing on insights from Cutler and other activists, at this link. In a live stream from Bird & Beckett Sunday, 4/10/22, at 10 a.m., Cutler and Sullivan will discuss the current situation. The live stream can be found on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel or Facebook page. The conversation will stay up on both platforms for viewing after the fact as well. Denise Sullivan presents a live-streamed series of morning discussions…

The Late Show: Darren Johnston’s Double Detour doubles down tonight… a return engagement after their March 12 debut! If you caught that one, you’ll want to catch this one. And if you didn’t, then you will! Darren Johnston – trumpet Ben Goldberg – clarinet Jeff Denson – bass Gerald Cleaver – drums What’s the music like? It’s an avant garde foray into the fabulous. Serious fun! Here’s a link to the video of the first outing: March 12 Double Detour Date BYOB, a mask and $20 cash for the cover charge. Doors open at 8:50pm for the 9:00 show. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Reservations will be held only until showtime at 9:00pm, then we’ll make the seats available to those waiting on line. Can’t make it to the show? Check it out in the live stream on our YouTube channel or Facebook page.