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.

San Francisco Poet Laureate Emerita Kim Shuck continues to host the twice-monthly Bird & Beckett poetry series on Zoom, with the assistance of Brett Benson. The readings now take place on the second and fourth Monday of each month. At 7pm. Bring your work! Tonight, the featured readers are Dan Brady and E. K. Keith, two long-time poetry reading organizers — a theme that will continue for this reading and the next one on April 26th. Dan runs the series at Sacred Grounds coffee house — as far as we know, the oldest poetry open mic in the City! E. K. organizes Poems Under the Dome — an annual event that takes place at City Hall — among numerous other poetry events and series. Join the Zoom reading to hear their poetry, then stay for the open mic and read your own. Email [email protected] to receive an invitation to the…

Eric Shifrin, piano & vocals Joe Kyle, Jr., bass Randy Lee Odell, drums Get in with the In Crowd. Bring your wallet! live streamed on YouTube and Facebook. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation / pay what your economics allow at this link. From Jelly Roll to Gene Autrey, you’re in for two eclectic sets of jazz chestnuts, country crooning & a few of your more eccentric novelty numbers. Eric Shifrin has been enhancing the convivial atmosphere of San Francisco’s bars, lounges and swank clubs for decades. So have his sidemen on this date! So get down to Bird & Beckett on Saturday night (via YouTube or Facebook) and enjoy what he can do in a little trio of like-minded professionals. Don’t forget that wallet! Paypal, Venmo, the Cash app. They all serve the purpose. You can also drop cash or a check by the store,…

Smith Dobson V, vibraphone Jeffrey Burr, guitar Eric Markowitz, bass Tony Johnson, drums Two sets of jazz standards and originals, live streamed on YouTube and Facebook. No audiences in the shop just yet. $20 suggested donation / pay what your economics allow at this link. Steeped in music at a young age — the son of a renowned jazz pianist and one of our favorite jazz vocalists — Smith is a multi-instrumentalist. His talents on vibes, sax and drums have been developed to a high degree over many years. A couple of years ago, he added the stand-up bass; and during the covidian era, he’s been working on the guitar. It’s not that he has a mania for playing them all at once, though. Tonight, he’ll have three of the Bay Area’s top jazz talents covering the guitar, bass and drums. It’s just that his creative hunger is not something…

The reigning tenor player of our place and time, Noel Jewkes has been respected and adulated for his lovely work on the horn for decades. He knows his way around any number of other instruments as well, and pens instantly classic tunes with alacrity. He was just a kid out in Utah when he started playing the resorts with his family’s band… then he came out to psychedelicize in jazz with the hippie rock crowd; the only male member of the Ace of Cups, among other pursuits. For decades since, he’s been known as Dr. Legato for his beautiful work on the tenor sax. Now, he can be considered an elder statesman of the art. This evening, Noel brings a reliable cohort of masterful players — Grant Levin, piano; Chris Amberger, bass; and Mark Lee, drums (pictured at left with the great tenor player Howard Wiley). We could sing each…