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…

Drummer Tony Johnson brings in a quartet on the fourth Friday of each month. But, heck, we’re celebrating 20 years of Friday night shows! It’s a sextet tonight–the 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Sextet — with Charlie McCarthy, tenor saxophone & flute; Noel Jewkes, saxophones & flute; Si Perkoff, piano; Glen Deardorff, guitar; Chuck Bennett, bass; and Tony Johnson, drums. BYOB and a twenty for the band! Throw in an extra twenty if you can afford it! Call 415-586-3733 for a reservation. 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! This is the legacy band of tenor player Chuck Peterson, who started it all back in October of 2002! In the photo below, that’s Chuck in the center, giving soloing room…

Doris Lessing’s book, Prisons We Choose To Live Inside is transcribed from lectures she gave in Canada in the mid-1980s.  Her themes have to do with the hypnotic power of mass-ideas in societies and individuals.  Although composed in what seems to us now a different juncture of time and space, her searching thoughts still pierce through to the essential issues, enriching and challenging our minds today, as the process of civilization continues its onward flow. Even more than this, we are brought closer to a living awareness of what has always been a constant presence in literature from the very beginning:  the need for an inspired basis of moral judgement, knowing the volatility that gives lies wings, even as truth takes solid steps on real earth. Walker talks on a variety of themes, typically on the  third Thursday of the month, live streamed on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and…

Write Now! SF Bay presents its fifth anthology, Uncommon Ground: BIPOC Journeys to Creative Activism. Many of us are deeply familiar with adversity and change. Our families have been tested by war, poverty, and discrimination for generations. Our DNA is suffused with profound lessons on how to cope with challenging times. And our writing is linked with daily activism in large and small ways. If you can’t make it into the shop, you can catch the live stream on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Edited by Shizue Seigel, Uncommon Ground features the work of 22 established Bay Area writers and artists who trace their journeys as creative activists from a BIPOC (Black, Brown, Indigenous, or People of Color) perspective. The depth of their insight arises from the legacies and challenges of their roots in Native America, Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Muslim world. Their lived experience…

Tate Swindell, researcher, writer and editor, engages his friend and colleague Hilary Holladay, author of a recent biography of poet Adrienne Rich  (1929-2012), in conversation about the poet and Holladay’s experience and process, diving into the complexities of Rich’s ever-evolving thought and expression. If you can’t make it into the shop, you can catch the live stream on our Facebook page or YouTube channel. Can’t make it to the show but want to contribute? Your donations to help pay the musicians and support the stream are much appreciated! Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) published dozens of influential books in her long career, gaining notice as a poet throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and emerging as a crucial voice in the anti-war, women’s liberation and other major social movements of the 1970s. She was a complex and mercurial writer whose complexities and ideas continue to fascinate.

Follow Marty’s facebook page for more information on the cancellation. https://www.facebook.com/marty.williams.5209 ———————————- Bay Area jazz pianist and vocalist, Marty Williams, was called “The Catalyst” by San Francisco Chronicle critic Phil Elwood. Anna DeLeon of Anna’s Jazz Island said: “Marty Williams is one of the Bay Area’s treasures. His piano playing and singing are passionate, humorous, and unique. Think Oscar Brown Jr. plus Mose Allison plus Monk with just a dash of Redd Foxx! Yes, unique!” Marty’s formal training came well after he received his “calling”—he tells the story of  listening to Ahmad Jamal’s album “Voices” as a turning point for him. Listening to that album and pondering the questions a young man faces in his life, Marty knew his destiny was to play the piano. As with so many great jazz pianists, Marty’s spirit taught him how to play the music he felt. Throughout his career Marty has played at…

Double your shows, double your fun! Two different bands, both led by Scott Foster Complete shows at 5:30 and 8:00pm A double decade celebration! Twenty Years of Friday Evening Jazz in the Bookshop   5:30 to 7:30pm – two sets of jazz in the sweet spot where trad and bop swing like crazy, played by a stellar quartet featuring trumpet king Mike Olmos with a delightful rhythm section — Scott Foster on guitar, Matt Montgomery on bass and Omar Aran on drums.   8 to 10pm – two sets of jazz from a quintet that knows no boundaries as it traces the echoes of the music’s roots and traditions as heard in the interstellar realms — David Boyce on saxophone, Alan Williams on trombone, Scott Foster on guitar, Kirk Peterson on bass and Brian Rodvien on drums.   Guitarist, bandleader, composer and educator Scott Foster has been a mainstay of…

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…