Three master musicians and an esteemed poet join together in honor of their late colleague and friend Glenn Horiuchi, born February 27, 1955. Horiuchi, who passed on June 3, 2000, was a key figure in the Asian American arts movements & companies that flowered in the San Francisco Bay Area and up and down the West Coast in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. 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! Saxophonist Francis Wong, co-founder and creative director of Asian Improv aRts (AIR), notes that Horiuchi “was a prime mover for Asian Improv aRts from our pre-history in the Asian American Movement until his transition. A role model and mentor for me and so many others, he played such roles as a musician, teacher, community organizer — most notably the…

JAZZphoria Quintet Jean Fineberg – tenor saxophone/flute Erika Oba – keyboards/flute/piccolo Nancy Wenstrom – guitar Jodi Durst – basses Jeremy Steinkoler – drums/percussion Bandleader and saxophonist Jean Fineberg has toured and recorded with Melba Liston, David Bowie, Laura Nyro, Chic, Sister Sledge (We Are Family)and was featured on Marian McPartland’s iconic Piano Jazz radio show. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Grammys in L.A., the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and the Monterey, Montreux, San Francisco and San Jose Jazz Festivals. Jean is the recipient of several NEA composition awards, a grant from InterMusic SF, several Meet-The-Composer grants and two composition awards from the American Federation of Musicians. To date, she has received seven artist-in-residence fellowships, where she continues to write the bulk of JAZZphoria’s material. Below, the full ensemble, from which this quintet is drawn… $25 cash cover charge; proof of vaccination and masks required. For a reservation,…

Drummer Tony Johnson brings in a quartet on the fourth Friday of each month Tonight, with a night dedicated to Chuck Peterson, it’s the 230 Jones Street Band, with Charlie McCarthy, saxophone & flute Glen Deardorff, guitar Al Obidinski, bass Tony Johnson, drums. Four old pros, and long-time friends, swingin’. $20 cash cover charge; proof of vaccination and masks required. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Audience capacity is 20. 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!

Walker Brents III considers Jeffers, casting a cold eye upon our wicked world from the craggy house he built in Carmel in the years following the first World War. Poet of the world’s edge. Candle bearer amidst elemental wave-roar. A mind holding its own, a prophetic eye of focused sight. A thinker whose thoughts give us moments of perception containing both desolation and splendor. A writer of great lines of austere simplicity. A resourceful sorcerer. A skillful seeker whose artistic quest challenges oblivion as it fits together stony syllables into utterances that defy time. A way to see how poetry can be an understanding of what life is, amidst the corruptions of human folly. A watcher on the far shore, whose vision has no beginning and no end. Catch Walker’s talk at 7:30pm Thursday, February 24th on our YouTube channel or our Facebook page

It was an extraordinary night of beautiful, intriguing night of music Saturday night at Bird & Beckett. Dahveed Behroozi, piano Shay Salhov, saxophone Jason Lewis, drums Dahveed Behroozi, Shay Salhov and Jason Lewis, with the late bassist John Shifflett, began in 2014 the development of a remarkable jazz quartet focused on original compositions and steeped in improvisation, drawing on classical and world music elements. Tonight, the trio soldiers on! $20 cash cover charge; proof of vaccination and masks required. Show at 7:30; doors at 7:20. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Audience capacity is 20. Find the Bird & Beckett live streams on our YouTube channel or Facebook page, and donate if you possibly can to support the musicians, the music and the venue! Donations to our general fund at this link

David Boyce, saxophones Scott Foster, guitar Charles Thomas, bass Cairo McCockran, drums Electronorhythmoharmonic music of the spheres. Live in the shop, $20 cash cover, proof of vax, masks. Reservations, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Catch it in the live stream on the Bird & Beckett YouTube channel or Facebook page. Watching online? Donate per the information on the screen if you can. The stream is a crucial artist/audience lifeline in a tough time, and the support of the home viewing audience is also crucial to make it sustainable.

On February 14th, VirtualPoets! celebrates the work of Elana Dykewomon. Lesbian activist, writer, organizer Dykewomon has contributed significantly to the literary communities of the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work will be read by Avotcja, Jewelle Gomez, Lourdes Figueroa, Norma Smith and our host Kim Shuck. The celebration will be followed by the usual open mic. The reading will begin, as always, at 7pm. Read more about our honoree here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elana_Dykewomon Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84350265713?pwd=eE84V3BYdWxiSFBHNHhmdUt1WTUzdz09 Meeting ID: 843 5026 5713 Passcode: 244211

Up on holiday from his Central California Coast hacienda, guitarslinger Bruce Forman, creator of the cowbop genre and late of the Jazz at Pearl’s house band back in its 1980s heyday — when Vince Lateano anchored the scene from his drumkit — rides into town for a trio date with Vince on drums and Al Obidinski on bass. Can’t fail to please! Better call for a reservation! 415-586-3733. Bring a $20 to help us pay the band!  Read up on Bruce here! Viewable live on the Bird & Beckett YouTube channel or Facebook page. If you’re watching it online, please donate per the information on the screen to help us pay the muscians and to support the music & venue! Video here.

Maurice Tani has been called a “cartographer of the human heart” (Scott Bloom, in The Bay Twang). Henry Salvia is all heart, with a winsome view of romance and a facility on keyboard that’s made him the cornerstone of countless bands traveling the backroads of country & R&B music. As Maurice’s record company, Little Village Foundation, says “Known for his wry/rye-to-romantic songwriting, agile guitar style and expressive singing, Tani’s particular flavor of Americana is a broad spectrum tincture of influences to cure what ails you. While rooted (at times distantly) in country music, his writing is centered on an urban-western perspective. Short musical narratives of life on the left coast. A sort of cinema for the blind.” Love is blind. Maurice and Henry are beautiful. $15 cover charge at the door, plus proof of vaccination (against the virus, if not against heartbreak) and a mask to hide your secret sorrow…

They’re Super Great! And so are you! Come down to the shop at 2pm for an hour of love! Kendra O’Dwyer & Angie Bennett two singers with two ukuleles and a passel of songs, for you! Live in the shop, gratis. Proof of vax, masks required. Find the live stream on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel or Facebook page.

Saxophonist Charlie Gurke leads the date, with Erik Jekabson on trumpet, Josh Tower on bass and Smith Dobson on drums. Two swinging sets live in the shop and in the live stream. Charlie is a cornerstone of the local jazz scene, renowned for his baritone sax and all manner of reeds. His colleagues on the date are top o’ the pops! Charlie says they’ll be thinking a bit about the Gerry Mulligan / Chet Baker outings sans piano or guitar. A sweet night out in Glen Park! $20 cash cover charge; proof of vaccination and masks required. For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733. Audience capacity is 20. 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!

Sam Priven, saxophone Sam Klein-Markman, guitar Omree Gal-Oz, piano Dexter Williams, bass Dillon Vado, drums Saxophonist, band leader, composer and arranger Sam Priven has assembled a group of independent band leaders, each raised in the Bay Area, coming together to form a collective in which each contributes some music and direction to the band. Drummer Dillion Vado has a few bands including Never Weather and Table Trio; Omree Gal-Oz has a few projects he’s led; and so too does Sam Priven, whose bands include the saxophone trio called Third Light and the ensemble On Self Care. $25 cash cover charge at the door; proof of vax, masks, please. Sliding scale available. No one turned away for lack of funds, only lack of seats. Audience capacity 20. Reservations (held until showtime only), call 415-586-3733. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show. Need to take it in from home? Find the…

$20 cash cover charge at the door; proof of vax, masks, please. Reservations (held until showtime only), call 415-586-3733. Audience capacity 20. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show. Need to take it in from home? Find the livestream at showtime on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. Born in Portsmouth, Virginia and raised in Peekskill, New York, and now a fixture on the NYC jazz scene, Ray Blue gained early experience there throughout the 1990s as a performer, composer, arranger and teacher while working with all manner of aspiring jazz players in small combos and clubs and building his reputation on major bandstands with master musicians including Houston Person, Barry Harris, Ornette Coleman, Benny Golson, George Coleman, Kenny Barron, Kirk Lightsey, John Gilmore, Dr. Art Davis, John Patton, Benny Powell, Eddie Henderson, Charlie Persip, Wycliff Gordon, Bernard Purdie, Ted Curson, Joe Lee Wilson, the Sun Ra Arkestra and the Cotton…

Towering figures for decades on the San Francisco jazz scene, the members of this quintet swing & bop with complete authority. A stroll in the park at Bird & Beckett tonight! Andrew Speight, alto sax Charlie McCarthy, tenor sax Greg Jacobs, piano Ari Munkres, bass Akira Tana, drums $25 cash cover charge; proof of vax, masks. Reservations (held until showtime only), call 415-586-3733. Audience capacity 20. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show. Catch the live stream on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel or Facebook page. Donate per the information on the screen if you can. The stream is a crucial artist/audience lifeline in a tough time, and the support of the home viewing audience is also crucial to make it sustainable.

One of the tightest jazz combos in San Francisco, ca 2022. Years of collaborative experience in the alleys, the parks, the clubs; dozens of blazing original compositions from the pen of trumpeter/leader Noah Frank; choice classics freshly interpreted. Back on the Bird & Beckett stage. Catch their last B&B outing here. Noah Frank, trumpet Greg Jacobs, piano Curtis Aikens, bass Brandon Farmer, drums   $20 cash cover charge; proof of vax, masks. Reservations (held until showtime only), call 415-586-3733. Audience capacity 20. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show. Catch the live stream on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel or Facebook page. Donate per the information on the screen if you can. The stream is a crucial artist/audience lifeline in a tough time, and the support of the home viewing audience is also crucial to make it sustainable.