Adam Shulman, organ Jeffrey Burr, guitar Smith Dobson, drums Adam’s trio will draw from the Great American Songbook and the bebop canon. Catch this show on our facebook page or youtube channel Support the musicians your donation by Paypal (to [email protected]), Venmo (@birdandbeckett) or the Cash app ($BirdBeckett). $20 is nice, but pay what you can! $20-200 sliding scale

Smith Dobson V, saxophone Keith Saunders, piano Eric Markowitz, bass Tony Johnson, drums Catch this show on our facebook page or youtube channel Support the musicians your donation by Paypal (to [email protected]), Venmo (@birdandbeckett) or the Cash app ($BirdBeckett). $20 is nice, but pay what you can! $20-200 sliding scale This outing of the 230 Jones Street Irregulars  is dedicated to the memory of Jerry Logas, who passed away a few short weeks ago. Jerry had a long and wonderful career in the music and was a frequent performer on the Bird & Beckett stage; for years he was a core member of the 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band, which held down the fourth Friday slot until early in 2020, but which is on hiatus while Covid rages. Drummer Tony Johnson keeps the flame burning meanwhile with the Irregulars. As for their colleagues in the long-running Jones…

Concerned about the fate of the sincere reader in the sincere reader’s rigorous solitude, Walker believes it might have to be Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy that will guide his thoughts this time out… a book with breadth to match its depth, not to mention its fourfold humorousness. A patchwork encyclopedia, an epic mosaic. Too grand to be pre or postmodern, it stands alone in timelessness. No matter your personal paranoia, there’s something for you here, along with more than a few good laughs. Walker talks monthly on the last Thursday of the month. Catch this one on our facebook page or youtube channel Show your appreciation for Walker’s work by sending your donation by Paypal (to [email protected]), Venmo (@birdandbeckett) or the Cash app ($BirdBeckett)  

Inaugurating a series of occasional Sunday morning chats, Valerie Luu was at Bird & Beckett on February 21st in conversation with Jeremy Dan Fish via live stream to talk about her book, with Andria Lo, Chinatown Pretty! You can play back the conversation that took place on facebook or youtube From our pre-event post:  They’ll talk about what Valerie and her colleague, the photographer Andria Lo, found when they dove into the most pleasurable pursuit of discovering the dimensions of the fascinating, beguiling and individualized fashion sense so evident in the Bay Area’s Chinese communities once you stop to look. Send your comments and questions in the chat, and we’ll relay them to Valerie. See you Sunday morning! If you can’t catch these Sunday morning chats in real time, you’ll find them on our YouTube channel and Facebook page after the fact, so no worries. But it’ll be a nice…

It’s been a year-plus since James and Grant made the scene at Bird & Beckett — two extraordinary musicians backed by two more extraordinary musicians. A date not to be missed! James Mahone, saxophone Grant Levin, piano Josh Thurston-Milgrom, bass Genius Wesley, drums          

Guitarist Scott Foster and his colleagues David Boyce on saxophone, Charles Thomas on bass and Cairo McCockran on drums dig deep into just a couple of notable African-American practitioners of the art as a nod to Black History Month. Among other lapidary pursuits, they’ll polish the facets of a few gems by harpist and composer Alice Coltrane and pianist McCoy Tyner, holding them to the light and enjoying their sparkle. Come along for a thoughtful and soulful dive into some beautiful and complex music! View the live stream on our YouTube channel or Facebook page Donate to help us meet our guarantees to the artists.  

Live jazz streamed from the bookshop stage on Valentine’s Day! View it at tinyurl.com/3aegq9L6 Find the schedule and donate at that same link!   Three combos live in the moment on the Bird & Beckett stage: The Simon Rowe Organ Trio The Tammy Lynne Hall Trio tbd – a quartet   Three combos presented in previously-aired streams from venues around the Bay Area: Azure McCall (Oakland Public Conservatory) Third Light (Art Boutiki) Kenny Washington with the Adam Shulman Trio (Healdsburg Jazz Festival) It’s a benefit to put a “guaranteed fair wage” in the pockets of the performers & technicians and to raise operating funds for the Independent Musicians’ Alliance!     View it at tinyurl.com/3aegq9L6 View the schedule and donate at that same link!

Catch jazz guitarist Kai Lyons with Giulio Xavier Cetto on bass and Genius Wesley on drums. Three musicians, young and younger still, who have been setting jazz audiences buzzing for the past several years. If you haven’t heard any one of them yet, you’ll want to tune in. If you already know their work, then you know you’ll want to tune in. Live at 7:30 on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Help us pay the band by sending your contribution by Paypal ([email protected]), Venmo app (@birdandbeckett) or Cash app ($BirdBeckett). Or email us with your pledge and drop a check or cash by the bookshop anytime! Jazz thrives in San Francisco, beautiful and unstoppable!

Trombonist Rick Brown’s quartet features pianist Sharman Duran, with terrific colleagues Carl Herder on bass and Pepe Jacobo on drums — a marvelous aggregation of musicians sure to offer up a fascinating 90 minutes of jazz collaboration. We’re on the hook for our traditional $600 quartet guarantee for this one. Step up to the extent you can to help us keep wonderful musicians adequately paid! Ask your rich jazz-loving uncle back east (you know, the one who’s crazy for Teagarden and Melba Liston) to tune in! We’ll give him a good pitch!

Another amazing aggregation graces the Bird & Beckett stage, this one led by vibraphonist Dan Neville and featuring Grammy award winning Christian Tumalan (piano), Brian Andres (drums), and Yadier Noa Chamble (bass). View the evidence here. The quartet promises throwbacks, world premieres, and original tunes/ arrangements. Don’t miss this special collaboration! This is the second date in a three-month/three-date residency for Dan during his brief time in the Bay Area. He was in Cali, Colombia for virtually all of 2020, and returns there in early April. Catch him now at Bird & Beckett. Pay what you can by Paypal ([email protected]) Venmo (@birdandbeckett) Cash app ($BirdBeckett) Cash/check also good! Email us your pledge and drop something by the shop. $20 is ideal. $2-$200 sliding scale! The musicians must be paid and its up to all of us who have the capacity to step up to the plate and get it done!…

Big fun ahead. Tune in on your phone, but if you’re set up for it, it’ll sound & look that much better at home with a nice screen and some good speakers. First up, this evening, The Ollie Dudek Trio — Ollie on bass and leading the charge, with a fantastic pair of musicians — Javier Santiago on piano and Geechi Taylor on drums. This will be a fabulous, classic piano trio date directed from the bass! That’s tonight, Friday, 2/5/21, at 7:30, live streamed on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Pay what you can by Paypal, Venmo or the Cash app. See the bottom of the video screen for info on that. Or email us with your pledge and drop by with cash or a check. $20 is ideal. $2-$200 sliding scale! Support our local musicians and the venues that present them! Your psychic rewards will be huge,…

A 31st birthday blowout for an exceptional young trumpeter, composer & producer. Isaac Schwartz on drums Curtis Aikens on bass Greg Jacobs on piano Noah Frank on trumpet Noah picked up the trumpet at age ten, spent five summers on the scene in NYC, busked for six months in Central Park in Manhattan and for seven months, as many as five days a week, in Golden Gate Park during the pandemic. And still he plays on. He’s barely getting started! Come to our live stream prepared to donate to his cause! Consider it your cover charge for this Saturday night jazz club date, when lights are low! $20 is nice, but $2 to $200, it’s all good. When musicians’ work is consumed for free, their ability to stay in the profession is challenged. From each according to your ability… Click on the photo below for Noah’s last outing at Bird…

Walter Earl, piano Arlington Houston, bass J Paul the Drummer, drums One of San Francisco’s finest working trios, led by an extraordinary pianist. Walter Earl, 6/19/20 solo concert Catch tonight’s trio show on YouTube or Facebook, or from the screen at the top of this webpage! But be aware the stream from here (the website) is a new thing and still a bit glitchy. If you run into any trouble at all (and you might!), you’ll find the stream going just fine on our YouTube channel or Facebook page right up to 9pm. Do contribute to help us pay the band, if you’re not flat broke yourself! They have rent to pay and not nearly enough paying gigs these days. Donate generously here. $20 is nice. Two dollars or two hundred, it’s all good. We’re guaranteeing $150 per musician in our live streams during this pandemic period and rely significantly…

Two strands of thought coincide here. On the one hand, the spiritual teaching of Emily Dickinson, whose skillfulness in condensed diction mystifies even as it inspires and empowers us, granting us the richness of our most intimate intimations. And on the other, her assured assimilation of the introspective rigor of her puritan inheritance coupled with a shrewd and practiced awareness of democratic consciousness’s greatest gift: the freedom granted by an unknown higher power to respond fully to an inborn call to create. Neither networker, nor self-promoter, nor even celebrity, she was right on the scene, just as we all actually are, laying it down upon the page for our own edification as heroic readers. It is not that difficult to imagine her before us, in all her human glory, as an apostle of poetic splendor. Catch Walker’s talk on our YouTube channel or Facebook page Do contribute, if you’re able,…