Walker Brents III delves into diverse subjects in a monthly sequence of talks. Tonight, he holds the 16th century adventurer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca to the light. Ultimately, Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was one of just four survivors of the Narváez expedition, which set out from Spain in 1527 with five ships and 600 soldiers, sailors and colonists. That number was diminished by a third in the Caribbean before reaching the Florida Gulf Coast, and was halved again by the time Núñez, commanding one of two improvised boats each with 40 men, came ashore on the coast at what is now Galveston, Texas and set off into the dessicated expanses that some think of as the American Southwest, others as Northern Mexico and others as unceded indigenous land. Soon, only 15 men remained, and then four, and for four years they lived out the destiny of Narváez’s commission.  Núñez…

$20 cover charge, cash at the door; byob.     $10 online donation requested for the live stream – youtube / fb

Mike Olmos, trumpet Javier Santiago, piano Giulio Xavier Cetto, bass Ben Esposito, drums Mike Olmos is one of the towering legends of San Francisco jazz! Javier Santiago and Giulio Xavier Cetto are two of its top players! And young Ben Esposito is coming on strong. Drummer Ben Esposito is a Bay Area native, born and raised in Alameda. He was a college freshman studying music education and performance at Chicago’s DePaul University when the pandemic hit, and had been playing weekly at a Baptist Church on Chicago’s South side as well as working with the great guitarist Bobby Broom and bassist Dennis Carroll. He came back home to the Bay Area and soon got busy playing outdoors at Lake Merritt in Oakland working with great players, both budding talents and seasoned pros (like the three with him on this gig), to raise money for social justice causes. Read more about…

Milestones! Bird & Beckett: 21 years in business The Proprietor: 65 years on the planet The Concert! (catch it in our live stream) THE SCOTT FOSTER QUINTET Scott Foster, guitar Mike Olmos, trumpet Joe Cohen, tenor saxophone Charles Thomas, bass Jeff Marrs, drums View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation or pay what your economics allow at this link We pay a “guaranteed fair wage” of $150 to each musician performing in our Friday and Saturday evening live streams and you are the first ones we look to in order to get that money together, so please do what you can! We are extremely grateful as well to the many individuals in the community who donate to our nonprofit Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project (the “BBCLP”) to help us build up the general fund from which we…

Join San Francisco columnist Denise Sullivan for a series of morning discussions with The City’s arts and cultural leaders and lesser-known workers, the everyday people who help make this place we call home, every second Sunday at 10 am, live streamed from Bird & Beckett Books in Glen Park. This morning, Denise will engage artist and arts & community networker Anna Lisa Escobedo in a conversation on arts and accessibility in a post-pandemic environment. As a muralist, Anna Lisa Escobedo tells the stories of her communities. And from Calle 24 to the California Historical Society and Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, by connecting visual artists, poets and musicians to resources, Escobedo contributes to a more inclusive model for museums and cultural institutions. Working through the pandemic to create safe, outdoor access to the arts for participants and observers, Escobedo will address how we’re doing and where we’re going with…

Click here to view & hear the Grant Levin Quartet at Bird & Beckett, June 12, 2021 Grant’s back! Grant Levin, a uniquely talented jazz pianist, has  been in as a sideman a couple of times in the past few months, but those have been rare opportunities to catch him here since the pandemic kicked in. Tonight marks his return to Bird & Beckett as the leader of a jazz combo, and what a combo it is! Dawan Muhammad, saxophone Grant Levin, piano Giulio Xavier Cetto, bass Jaz Sawyer, drums View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. No audiences in the shop just yet. Grand experiment tonight: Buy a $15 ticket to the Facebook Live event or watch it on YouTube by donation and pay what your economics allow $5 to $25 suggested donation! We pay a “guaranteed fair wage” of $150 to each musician performing in…

As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, we once again are pleased to present the Michael Zilber Quartet! Four major talents on one bookshop stage. Michael Zilber, saxophone Matt Clark, piano Peter Barshay, bass Jeff Marrs, drums ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ It was Michael’s appearance on our stage for an audience of several on March 13, 2020 that launched our first tentative steps toward the Bird & Beckett live stream. Check this little facebook live test, shot by our own Angie Bennett on a borrowed iPhone. We made do with that approach until Nico Mesa came along and set us up with our current gear and Angie moved over to become a remarkably talented sound engineer. The live streams are much more beautiful to view and listen to now, though the musicianship, spirit and soul have always been there. All along, we’ve kept it going, week…

Join us in funky soulville this Saturday night! Todd Swenson, guitar Derek Evans, vocals Ian Ratzer, piano Paul Olguin, bass Larry Vann, drums Here’s a little something that Derek & Todd were just cooking up for Saturday. Click here for This Side Up at Club Deluxe in June 2019, with Ken Owen on drums. And here’s a taste of a stripped down trio version of This Side Up in our live stream last September, with Larry Vann on drums and Angie Bennett on the board:   View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation or pay what your economics allow at this link We pay a “guaranteed fair wage” of $150 to each musician performing in our Friday and Saturday evening live streams and you are the first one we look to in order to get that money together,…

San Francisco Poet Laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin plus percussionist Ahkeel Mestayer ~~Two sets of poetry & percussion~~ Crucial words and beats for our times ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ We encourage you to read more about our poet laureate at this link and to seek out his works, his readings and his books https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tongo-eisen-martin ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. No audiences in the shop just yet. $10-20 suggested donation Pay what your economics allow at this link We pay a “guaranteed fair wage” of $150 to each of the artists performing in our live streams and you are the first one we look to in order to get that money together, so please do what you can! We are extremely grateful as well to the many individuals in the community who donate to our nonprofit Bird & Beckett…

    San Francisco native daughter Annette A Aguilar is flying home from NYC for a family visit, and brings together a passel of great musicians from around the Bay including her brother Ricky Aguilar plus Anthony Blea, Murray Low, Gary Brown and a couple special guests for two special sets of music streamed live and direct to your living room! So ice your favorite libation, push the furniture back for dancing & make sure you have your streaming device hooked up to a pair of nice speakers to do justice to the music & musicianship  we’re offering you on this Memorial Day weekend out of Glen Park, San Francisco, California — the jazz center of the universe! You just might want to invite the neighbors! But if you do make the live stream your party music, make sure you take up a collection to push through the interwires via…

Rob Ewing, trombone Beth Schenck, saxophone Lisa Mezzacappa, bass Jordan Glenn, drums Avant garde jazz music from four major improvisers/composers/players who cover the Bay Area jazz waterfront. Sifter has been heard most steadily at Woods Bar in Oakland, but pops up here and there including recent dates in parking spots around the Bay from Omar Aran’s Jazzmobile. We’re looking forward to streaming them live from the Bird & Beckett stage! The say jazz is the sound of surprise. Open your ears and your mind will follow… View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation or pay what your economics allow at this link We pay a “guaranteed fair wage” of $150 to each musician performing in our Friday and Saturday evening live streams and you are the first ones we look to in order to get…

Drummer Tony Johnson leads a quartet on the 4th Friday of each month, and tonight, it’s the “Irregulars” — a quartet led by Tony with long-time associates Charlie McCarthy on reeds, Glen Deardorff on guitar and Al Obidinski on bass making it swing from bop to bossa. Jazz  you can count on! A little history: This quartet, vital as it is, is a legacy outfit descended from the Chuck Peterson Trio of yore.  That is to say, “jazz in the bookshop” as a regular thing started on a Friday evening in the fall of 2002, October to be precise, in the old shop on Diamond Street, when neighborhood saxophonist Chuck Peterson started a weekly, Friday evening tradition that continues to this day. The trio early on became a quartet, and then a quintet when tenor player and arranger Bill Perkins settled into the front line with Chuck, providing terrific charts…

The Sublime! Poetry’s ultimate theme. Every aesthetic, from east to west, has had something to say about this. So why not take a look here, and find a place to bring our thoughts to bear? It is for this we invoke the muses to sing through us. The ages show them to be generous! Walker Brents III  seek hints from sources encompassing Ibn Arabi to Cabeza de Vaca. Be ready to understand why dervishes whirl. View the stream YouTube channel                Facebook page Donate Help us Pay the Pundit    

View the live stream on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel and Facebook page $20 suggested donation pay what your economics allow at this link The Trio Thurston Moore – guitars Marshall Trammell, Music Research Strategist – percussion Bruce Ackley – saxophones               Opening set: Wobbly – solo electronics  

Gaea Schell, piano Lyle Link, tenor saxophone John Wiitala, bass Austin Lee Harris, drums play new originals and arrangements by the co-leaders View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation or pay what your economics allow at this link Described as “one of the West Coast’s best kept secrets,” Gaea Schell pulls in the listener with an approach that shines with interpretive sensibility. Known among her peers for swinging every note, subtle phrasing, and unique writing, this West Coast-based pianist/vocalist/flutist is a native of Alberta, Canada where she grew up playing music from an early age. Gaea is a graduate of acclaimed McGill University in Montreal and spent time in New York as a recipient of a Canada Council for the Arts grant studying with pianist/composer Richie Beirach. Accomplished and versatile, she – as drummer Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath…