Call to reserve a seat now! Rova has been a force on the international festival circuit for decades, but makes its home in San Francisco. Tonight, Rova digs in deep at Bird & Beckett! Bruce Ackley, soprano sax Steve Adams, alto sax Larry Ochs, tenor sax Jon Raskin, baritone sax Read up on Rova here     Live in the shop – $20 cash cover charge Live streamed on YouTube and Facebook View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. $10 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 we look to the audience, whether live or online, 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…

Drummer Tony Johnson anchors Bird & Beckett’s jazz scene on the fourth Friday of every month. Hear him tonight in the company of one of the great veteran saxophonists on the scene, Charlie McCarthy, guitarist Glen Deardorff and bassist Jeff Saxton. Guaranteed swinging bebop & bossa. Tony hit San Francisco in 1959, fresh off the boat from his native Australia, ready and raring to go. He got busy in the North Beach clubs right away, recorded in 1960 with vocalist Bev Kelly in a combo with legendary saxophonist Pony Poindexter, pianist Flip Nunez and bassist Johnny Allen at the Coffee Gallery on Grant Street, played behind Bobby Short at the Hungry I. Tony played on the Ed Sullivan Show with the Vagabonds (the house band of the Tropicana Hotel in Vegas), toured the country with George Shearing, backed Peggy Lee, recorded in the Claude Williamson Trio alongside bassist Don Prell…

Deluxe Jazz in July at Bird & Beckett Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays 7:30 to 10pm Tonight, Wed. 7/21: The Patrick Wolff Quartet Patrick Wolff, tenor saxophone Jeffrey Burr, guitar Eric Markowitz, bass James Gallagher, drums $20 cover in the store; $10 cover on the stream Staying home, but want to hear the music? Catch our live stream on Facebook       YouTube $10 cover charge by paypal, venmo, cash app or drop it by the shop Thanks for supporting the musicians! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Friday, July 23, 7:30pm $20 in the shop; $10 in the stream Tony Johnson & the 230 Jones Street Irregulars with Charlie McCarthy, Glen Deardorff & Al Obidinski   Saturday, July 24, 7:30pm $20 in the shop; $10 in the stream Rova Saxophone Quartet   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~…

Barshay/Atwal/Levin: A Trio Bassist Peter Barshay has recorded, performed and toured with an impressive range of musicians during his career spanning five decades. He began that career in the San Francisco Bay Area, moving east in 1978 to join the dynamic New York City jazz scene. During his 17-year New York residency, he performed with a long list of top-name jazz artists. Back on the San Francisco scene and touring internationally in the 25-plus years since 1995, Peter is one of the great voices on his instrument anywhere, working in settings from concert halls to festival stages to small clubs and bars…to the bookshop cum jazz club known as Bird & Beckett in San Francisco. For this date, he’s enlisted the drummer Hamir Atwal and the pianist Grant Levin, two young and fully matured jazz musicians also comfortable playing at all the levels that live jazz offers the musicians and…

Scott Foster has been the skeleton key to the Bird & Beckett jazz sanctum since it kicked in in earnest, back in late 2002. Back then, Chuck Peterson, a Glen Park neighbor and a professional jazz musician working in the theater district pit bands–and also a proud Local 6 union member, started fielding a quartet weekly. Chuck called on bassist Don Prell to help recruit musicians, and Scott was one of those who was quickly a first call player on those dates and lit them up every time. Don’s career in the ’50s was pretty high profile and, after (or while) toiling in symphony orchestras for several decades, he also ran a jazz band of varied personnel at the San Francisco Boat Club down in Mission Bay. So, Don was in a position to call on lots of musicians and served that purpose well when he brought Scott onto the…

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, Sunday, July 11 at 10 a.m., Denise will engage Kelly Dessaint in a conversation on independent publishing, zine making, writing and driving-for-hire in the pre and post-pandemic Bay Area. Kelly Dessaint is a veteran of the small press. He has been pushing print media as a writer, editor, designer and publisher since the ’90s. He founded Phony Lid Books in 1999 to publish paperbacks by underground writers, played in a bunch of bands, did odd jobs and peddled rare books at flea markets around LA. In 2014, he moved to Oakland and started driving for Uber and Lyft, documenting…

Wendy brings her trio back to Bird & Beckett for a fresh take on the boogie woogie. Guaranteed pleasure & good times! With Takezo Takeda on guitar and Kirk Harwood on drums. Come down to Bird & Beckett for a grand time. Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 show; be sure to byob (and glass) and take your empty with you when you go, if you please. Masks optional if you’re vaccinated. $20 cash cover charge requested View our live streams on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page. $10 to view the show online (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…

Poet/Educator/Activist Tongo Eisen-Martin, San Francisco Poet Laureate, hosts six individuals who we’re proud to present in the shop tonight. Audience welcome. A live stream will carry the event for those not comfortable venturing out, whether due to dark of night, lack of transit or any other reason. But rest assured, the in-person experience will be rewarding indeed, for you and for the artists. View the live stream here! ——————————- $10-20 sliding scale cover charge cash at the door byob&glass: please pack it in/pack it out. please wear a mask if you’re unvaccinated, otherwise, relax and know you’re welcome here! $5-10 donation requested to view the livestream: youtube / fb no one turned away for lack of funds, but please do what you can to help us compensate the artists and sound engineer! donate here ——————————- jxtheo (j-thee-o), also known as Jean (JT) Teodoro, is an environmentalist, proletarian internationalist, poet and…

Pepe Jacobo Quartet Bob Crawford, piano Jason Muscat, bass Carlos Caro, congas Pepe Jacobo, drum set and percussion Doors open at 7:20 for the 7:30 shows. $20 cover, cash, payable at the door. BYOB and BYOglass, and please pack out what you bring in! No masks required if fully vaccinated. Pepe Jacobo is an ebullient master of many musical genres, as reflected by the diversity of the groups he plays with including the Jorge Santana Band, the Latin Funk band Mas Cabeza, the Latin jazz group Caliente 2000 and the world music group Volcan. He holds a Diploma in Music from the University of Costa Rica, has studied with Stewart Mars, and has taken private classes with Antoni Saroni, Pete Magadini and many others. Pepe creates and performs original music on guitar and percussion; his teaching emphasizes the mathematics of time signatures, music therapy, scales, chords, open tones and fun.…

Avotcja’s Almost 80 Birthday Concert 2 sets of poetry and music Set 1: Avotcja with Carlos Reyes on Paraguayan Harp & Flute Set 2: Acotcja with the Genius Wesley Trio LIVE STREAMED FROM THE SHOP — NO AUDIENCE TONIGHT A major poet and writer in many genres. A devotee of beautiful music, particularly from the afro-caribbean traditions. A long-time dj on KPFA & KPOO. A champion of culture and 2015 Jazz Hero.   12th ANNUAL BERKELEY POETRY FESTIVAL LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2014 S.F. FILIPINO AMERICAN JAZZ FESTIVAL LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2014 JAZZ JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION “JAZZ HERO” AWARD 2015 PEN OAKLAND LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2015 BLACK MEDIA APPRECIATION NIGHT LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2015 “THE JaZzLine INSTITUTE” BAJABA (Bay Area Blues & Jazz Artists) AWARD 2015 BAY BLUES SOCIETY HALL OF FAME JAZZ GROUP OF THE YEAR for her group, Modupue, twice: in 2005 and 2010 PEN OAKLAND “ADELLE FOLEY AWARD” for…

Larry De La Cruz, saxophone Jim Peterson, saxophone Scott Foster, guitar Decades of shared history on the San Francisco jazz scene Good times, great music Doors open 7:20pm Music at 7:30pm $20 cash at the door BYOB / BYOGlass Pack it in / Pack it out No food in the shop just yet, thanks! Also live on Facebook   and   YouTube $10 donation for the live stream

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…