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,…

  Phillip Greenlief – tenor saxophone Dan Seamans – bass Tom Hassett – drums Catch the show from the screen at the top of this website! That’s a brand new thing, so we’ll see how it goes this weekend. If you run into any trouble at all (and you might!), you’ll find the stream on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. And 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. If you’re doing well in these times, share your good fortune. The Lost Trio is now celebrating 25 years of exploring the boundaries of jazz  while redefining the term jazz standard.  They have presented live collaborations with some of the finest players on the West Coast: John Schott, Sasha Dobson, Adam Levy, Cory Wright, Darren Johnston, Scott Foster, Beth Schenck, Tim Perkis,…

Jazz streamed live from the bookshop every Friday evening at 7:30 pm. Tonight, jazz veterans Tony Johnson (drums) and Glen Deardorff (guitar) — long known to Bird & Beckett regulars as members of the 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band — join forces tonight in a quartet date with reed player Charlie McCarthy and bassist Al Obdinski, with two sets of jazz standards and bop classics. Catch the show from the screen at the top of this website! That’s a brand new thing, so we’ll see how it goes this weekend. If you run into any trouble at all (and you might!), you’ll find the stream on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. And 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. If you’re doing well…

Tonight, exuberant jazz from trad to bop with trumpeter Andrew Stephens, bassist Dexter Williams and drummer Carson Messer. Rooted in the Sacramento jazz scene, the three have long years in the music that belie their youth. Catch the show from the screen at the top of this website! That’s a brand new thing, so we’ll see how it goes this weekend. If you run into any trouble at all, you’ll find it on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. And 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. If you’re doing well in these times, share your good fortune.

Just about now, we can all use an evening that takes us away from the pain of our times. Scott, Eric and Smith will give us that, and will attest to the promise of better times coming. Three fine musicians of long association, all familiar to Bird & Beckett audiences from countless jazz dates over the past two decades.           Scott Foster, guitar Eric Markowitz, bass Smith Dobson V, drums Live on Bird & Beckett’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. $20 suggested donation / pay what your economics allow at this link. Absolutely no one turned away for lack of funds! Strapped or flush, we all need this music. Send your contribution by PayPal to [email protected], by Venmo to @birdandbeckett, or by the Cash app $BirdBeckett. Or pledge your contribution by email. You can mail us a check or drop by the shop with cash or a check in the coming…

Q. R. Hand was a hip & humble & towering figure among San Francisco poets for decades, since his arrival from Brooklyn in 1970. We’ve just lost him at age 83. San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck hosts a reading in tribute to Q. R. featuring a number of poets who knew him well.   from Numberless Are the Sands on the Seashore us folk are the peoples who look towards the sea vision and memory past perfect futures are strewn about our musics like sea weeds on the shore our eyes hearts afire dancing on limbs aghast and bedazzled caressing these sands hand clapping spirits our souls are numberless like bands of the spectra our hues are numberless         There will not be the usual open mic component tonight, so that we can better focus our thoughts on a poet who meant so much to us…

Eric Shifrin, jazz pianist par excellence and free spirit, has gathered the In Crowd in the City’s saloons and salons for decades. Tonight, he’s bringing in Ollie Dudek on bass and Mark Lee on drums for two eclectic sets of jazz pearls, pop tunes and your occasional novelty number. Gems from Jelly Roll Morton to Hoagy Carmichael to Gene Autrey. It’s always a pleasure to welcome Eric back to Bird & Beckett. Live on Bird & Beckett’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. $20 suggested donation / pay what you can at this link Send your contribution by PayPal to [email protected], by Venmo to @birdandbeckett, or by the Cash app $BirdBeckett. Or email a pledge and drop cash or a check by the shop in the coming days. Your generosity allows us to guarantee a “fair” wage of $150 per musician for our live stream concerts during this pandemic period of few gigs and sparse gig income.

The remarkable young vibraphonist Dan Neville has just returned from a year-long immersion in Cali, Colombia. While he had arrived in Cali with plans to stay from January-March 2020, Dan found himself stranded in Colombia as the pandemic hit and closed Colombia’s borders. Dan made good use of the time overseas, traveling frequently to Colombia’s rural Pacific Coast jungle, studying the Colombian marimba with master musician Diego Obregón, helping to build a recording studio, writing music and recording various projects while teaching vibraphone on the side. Catch Dan while he’s back in the Bay Area, ready to illuminate audiences at no other place than Bird and Beckett. He’ll be joined by local heavyweights Danny Brown (sax), Giulio Cetto (bass) and Mike Quigg (drums). We have two more dates on the books with Dan before he returns to Cali in April. No better time to catch him than now! Dan Neville,…

Jazz, Poetry & Afrobop! Avotcja with the Genius Wesley Trio Avotcja lives and breathes as poet, musician, musicologist, broadcaster, mentor of young artists, friend and colleague of countless others. With her programs on KPOO (La Verdad Musical) and KPFA (Bebop, Cubop and the Musical Truth), she’s exhibited for decades her deep connection to Afro-Caribbean, African and Latin music, to African-American blues and jazz, to poetry and equally to the multitudinous  communities that sustain and extend those art forms.  For years, Avotcja has brought her expansive ensemble Modúpue to Bird & Beckett the first Sunday of each year; when she brings her poems to the stage with Modupúe, her humanity and genius are on full display.  Modúpue will return with Avotcja when the health crisis that is the coronavirus has abated; this evening, the Genius Wesley Trio will bring a brilliance to share that belies their youth, proving the absolute universality…

Larry Vann, the Groove Merchant, brings his long-time working trio, with Michael Warren on bass and Tim Landis on guitar, for 90 minutes of jazz, soul, blues and funk. Larry has performed with Curtis Mayfield, Elvis Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite, among a raft of superstars, and he’s played the Bird & Beckett stage many times, with this trio and with the New Squatoolas and Todd Swenson’s This Side Up. He’s a cornerstone of the Bay Area music scene and has been for decades!   Take in our shows on the Bird & Beckett Facebook page or YouTube channel. $20 suggested donation / pay what you can at this link You can also simply go to PayPal and send your donation to [email protected], use the Venmo app on your smartphone and send to @birdandbeckett, or use the Cash app and send to $BirdBeckett. Or email your pledge and drop a check or cash by…

Kalil is one of the most riveting jazz vocalists to come along in a generation. He was raised here in the Bay Area on Nigerian Afrobeat and Highlife music, classically trained for the world’s opera stages, then spirited into a world of jazz, enraptured by the jewels of melody, rhythm and eloquence of the bountiful masterpieces found in what’s come to be known as the Great American Songbook  — song after song of love, wit, humanity, joy and wry wisdom.  In the past three years, he’s made seven trips to Party Town (as he’s dubbed Russia) to sing with combos and orchestras for jazz hungry oligarchs and commoners alike! You’ll understand why the world has embraced him when you tune in to catch the magic he’ll create New Year’s Day with Luis Peralta on piano, Dexter Williams on bass and Genius Wesley on drums.   Take in our shows on…

Joshua Raoul Brody has a half hour of song for you from the Bird & Beckett stage from 11:45pm to 12:15am tonight to ring out the old year and bring on the new! Don’t fret if you just need to bury your head under your pillow tonight. It will be up for viewing the next day… a vestige of 2020. But join us live on YouTube or Facebook (links below), if you can!   And at 7:30pm on New Year’s Day, Kalil Amar Wilson will sing and swing with a trio in a full-out embrace of love, hope and joy. Luis Peralta, piano; Dexter Williams, bass; Mike Quigg, drums.     Then, Saturday, January 2nd, 7:30pm, catch Groove Merchant Larry Vann with his long-time working trio featuring Tim Landis on guitar and Michael Warren on bass. Larry is a cornerstone of Bay Area jazz, soul, blues and funk, and has…

Master guitarist Duncan James,  harmonically sophisticated and always swingin’, has played jazz on our stage countless times in the last couple of decades. He returns to Bird & Beckett for his traditional last-Sunday-of-the-year-booking, this time with Carla Kaufman on bass and Benny Watson on piano.   Tune in this evening at 7:30 pm on Facebook     or     YouTube   Here’s a little taste of what Duncan does so well! http://duncanjamesjazz.com/movies/solo.html Duncan James has performed with George Barnes, Howard Alden, Bruce Foreman, Mundell Lowe, Marilyn McCoo, Eartha Kitt, Michael Feinstein, Bernadette Peters, Barbara Cook, Chet Baker, Bobby McFerrin, Jimmy Witherspoon, Frankie Laine, Bob Hope, Les Brown, Eddie Sauter, the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Besides countless clubs, bars, restaurants and concert halls, he’s played at the San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Concord and Russian River Jazz Festivals. Duncan’s recording credits include three recordings with George Barnes,…

Wednesday 12/16 at 7:30pm, Walker Talks! Catch Walker Brents III, the store’s resident mythologist philosopher poet, holding forth on the gift of truth. Lewis Hyde’s book, The Gift, is the inspiring text here, with Truth the enriching theme, like an intuitive moral compass. Clean simple spare lines betokening beautiful proportions, inwardly sensed, like Shaker furniture…and all that jazz… The Gift of Truth is its untouchability. Seemingly wounded and used in public display, yet always abiding. The original open secret. It lives in the realm of intuition, and when it is needful for it to be drawn forth, we have the arts. The economy of the arts is a gift economy, an economy of intangible forms that increase their value as they are shared. A circulation system, whose ways are charted by the imaginative sense. In these hungry and thirsty times it is still possible to see this. Catch Walker’s talk…

Live jazz from the bookshop every Friday since 2002! Tonight, jazz vocalist Kalil Wilson celebrates the holiday season with the Genius Wesley Trio Kalil Wilson, vocal Luis Peralta, piano Isaac Coyle, bass Genius Wesley, drums In less than a decade, vocalist Kalil Wilson has become one of the most potent and promising young vocalists of his generation. Gifted with a powerful yet nuanced voice and armed with a technical versatility that positions him comfortably in jazz, R&B, pop, and even classical, Wilson has earned high marks from the music press and has captivated audiences from Barcelona to Berkeley with performances that defy easy categorization. His bright reimaginings of jazz standards and originals are well-informed by the rich history of great jazz singing while melding seamlessly with his heartfelt, eclectic stylings. Genius Wesley has been hailed as a prodigy jazz drummer and percussionist. At age 18, he performs regularly and coaches…