Back in March 2020, as San Franciscans first took cover in their individual homes, those that had homes!, guitarist Scott Foster began to compose a tune a day for a good long stretch. Scott presented a generous number of those tunes in a solo live stream from Bird & Beckett on August 21, 2020, five months into the pandemic. You can hear that concert by clicking here. Along the way, as the pandemic wore on, Scott enlisted three colleagues — Larry De La Cruz, saxophone; Andrew Higgins, bass; Russ Gold, drums — to work with him to bring the compositions to life, developing and recording an album’s worth of material over time and distance with his colleagues. Now, that album is ready for release. Tonight, Scott Foster brings the quartet to the Bird & Beckett stage and live stream to celebrate the release of this recording project of all original…

CBop returns to the stage to help a friend. A note from CBop’s drummer, André Custodio: We’ve yearned to return to entertain people and to express ourselves. 2020 put the kibosh on that. After a hiatus, we are back to benefit our dear friend Brooke. Bird & Beckett has been so kind as to open their house to us and offer their livestream in benefit of a veteran who continues to assist hundreds of veterans to get the benefits they needed. It is time to give back if we can. Please join us as we provide some live entertainment in support of Brooke’s GoFundMe campaign.ALL PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT BROOKE This will be CBop’s first live performance since the C-19 shelter-in-place. We are so excited to play for you and to honor Brooke.CLICK HERE TO HIT THE LIVE FEED. :)Join us for some good music and to help support Brooke’s speedy recovery. Yours drumly,…

Larry Ochs, reeds, and Donald Robinson, drums, focus on their forthcoming cd, A Civil Right, releasing July 25, 2021 and available for pre-order on Bandcamp. Larry Ochs is a founding member of the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, one of the Bay Area’s avant-garde treasures since 1978. Donald Robinson – “a percussive dervish,” according to Coda – was the drummer of choice for ROVA’s revivification of John Coltrane’s Ascension. The East Bay Express has said of the saxophonist’s sound: “Ochs’ full-bodied tenor is out of the John Coltrane/Albert Ayler ‘free’ tradition: forceful, passionate… talking-in-tongues,” while the Chicago Reader said about the drummer and his relationship with Ochs, “Robinson is neither flashy nor explosive, but his playing has heft and he covers lots of ground – he can maintain a feeling of order while playing meter-less rhythms or transform the pulse of jagged post-bop until it’s almost abstract. He’s a good match for…

Andrew Speight, alto saxophone Matt Clark, piano Essiet Okon Essiet, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums Andrew Speight is a titanic alto player who is held in high esteem in the Bay Area. From Sydney, Australia, he came to the U.S. in the early ’90s, and has led the jazz program at San Francisco State University for years. He can play dozens of choruses on a bebop tune without repeating an idea. He’s an amazing musician, and a joy to hear. His rhythm section on this date are well-traveled professionals of the highest caliber. Drummer Sylvia Cuenca, temporarily home on the West Coast since March of 2020, has been based in NYC from a young age, traveled for four years as the drummer in saxophone colossus Joe Henderson’s quartet, spent eleven years with trumpeter Clark Terry and has had a long association with trumpeter Eddie Henderson. She leads her own quartets in…

Michael Zisman, mandolin Jason Vanderford, guitar and vocals Scott Foster, guitar Joe Kyle, Jr., bass Emily Zisman, vocals Music for la dolce vita! 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, 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 augment audience donations when necessary! Monthly donations are particularly helpful. Donate to the BBCLP at this link to further our…

Bird Lives! Erik Jekabson, trumpet & flugelhorn Keith Saunders, piano John Wiitala, bass Hamir Atwal, drums The Erik Jekabson Quartet plays the music of one of the architects of bebop, the hugely influential saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker.       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, 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 augment audience…

Kyle Hernandez, guitar Brian Ho, organ Jason Lewis, drums They say the neon lights are bright… …tonight Kyle focuses on the music of George Benson! California born and raised, Kyle Hernandez learned to play guitar and sing in a musical family that provided him lessons at a young age. He moved to New York in 2006 after finishing high school and being awarded a scholarship to attend The New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in Manhattan. While attending school, Kyle studied privately with musical heavyweights including guitarists Peter Bernstein, and Vic Juris, and bassist Reggie Workman. Since finishing school, Kyle has shared the stage with a vast array of talented musicians and groups internationally including Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Eric Alexander, Robert Glasper and many others. Kyle has participated in over 30 recordings and numerous festivals, concert and club performances with musicians spanning from all generations. As a leader,…

Drummer Sylvia Cuenca and bassist Essiet Okon Essiet join forces with Andrew Speight, alto saxophone, and Matt Clark, piano. Born and raised in San Jose, Sylvia Cuenca was hired in her teenage years by the late great guitarist Eddie Duran for her first professional gig at Pearl’s Jazz Joint, when Pearl’s was an after-hours club in the basement of the Great Eastern Restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Sylvia headed for New York at age 21, where she established a notable career that has included four years in the Joe Henderson Quartet and eleven years in trumpeter Clark Terry’s band, along with countless engagements with the likes of Eddie Henderson, Billy Taylor, Helen Merrill, George Cables, Jon Faddis and other such jazz luminaries. Essiet Okon Essiet came of age in Portland; he worked in Europe in the early 1980s with Famoudou Don Moye and in 1983 moved to New York City,…

Shabistari, Persian Sufi poet of the 13th century, whose Garden of Mystery evidences an intricate mystic didacticism, yes, but that very thing was what the soul needed, even as Khan’s horsemen thundered down upon them. Walker Brents III plumbs the waters, the last Thursday of each month.

Bird and Beckett Online Open Mic Monday April 25th. Kim Shuck hosts. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84995359158?pwd=SXIwdFEyMExrMDE1M3crT3hnTmlHdz09 Meeting ID: 849 9535 9158 Passcode: 513688

Lorca Hart, drums Brian Ho, organ Lyle Link, saxophone Lorca Hart leads a trio through two sets of live streamed jazz. Lorca grew up in a musical household in Taos, New Mexico, and now inhabits his own musical household here in the Bay Area, with percussionist Amy Molinelli and their young son. Lorca studied at CalArts in L.A. in the early 1990s with Albert “Tootie” Heath, Joe La Barbera, Charlie Haden and Wadada Leo Smith. He went on to work professionally with Bobby Hutcherson, Stanley Jordan, Ralph Moore, Carmen Lundy, Freddie Hubbard, Calvin Keys, Craig Handy, Kyle Eastwood, Herman Riley, Azar Lawrence, Red Holloway, Plas Johnson, John Heard, Danny Grissett, Justo Almario, Bennie Maupin, Phil Ranelin, Dave Pike, Don Menza, Hugh Masekela, Anton Schwartz, the Clayton Brothers, Anthony Wilson, Julian Lage and many others. View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. No audiences in the…

A fine quartet, once again, assembled by drummer Tony Johnson, well nigh a legend on the local scene! Each of these players has been well respected on the national and international scene for decades; each brings a raft of experience to the bandstand. Bob Kenmotsu, sax Keith Saunders, piano John Wiitala, bass Tony Johnson, 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 per musician 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, 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…

Bird & Beckett is presenting an occasional sequence of Sunday morning streamed conversations from the bookshop stage on topics of interest to the neighborhood and the city. You can find them on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. Can’t tune in at the appointed time? They’ll stay up in the same places for viewing at your convenience. CCSF is facing cuts of more than 50%, with classes and programs in the balance and hundreds of faculty jobs at stake. These unprecedented cuts will be devastating to the city’s students and economy and undermine City College of San Francisco’s essential mission: to provide an accessible and quality education to all San Franciscans, especially those most at risk. Mary Bravewoman, CCSF math professor and AFT 2121 Vice President, and English department faculty member Tehmina Khan, AFT 2121 Executive Board Representative-at-Large and Grievance Team Member, will detail the impact expected if the…

John Calloway trio with guest vocalist Angie Doctor will be performing songs with themes for the season of Spring and with that, the slow but sure opening up of music and arts venues in the city! John Calloway, flute & percussion Murray Low, piano Saul Sierra, bass Angie Doctor, vocal live streamed on YouTube and Facebook. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation $2 to $200 sliding scale. No kidding! High or low, pay what your economics allow at this link. John Calloway is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger who has over 40 years of experience as a professional musician. He has performed with renowned jazz artists Israel Cachao Lopez, Max Roach, and Omar Sosa. In the San Francisco Bay Area, John has built a solid foundation as a as a performer and arranger, leading his own ensembles and projects as well as collaborations with John Santos,…

Scott’s quartet tonight plays original arrangements, many of which they recorded and were starting to play at Haight Street’s famed Club Deluxe just before the pandemic came down.  They’re looking forward to revisiting the material and making it fresh. ________________ Omar Aran drums and arranger Ben Stolorow piano Matt Montgomery bass Scott Foster, guitar ________________ live streamed on YouTube and Facebook. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation / pay what your economics allow at this link.