Another amazing aggregation graces the Bird & Beckett stage, this one led by vibraphonist Dan Neville and featuring Grammy award winning Christian Tumalan (piano), Brian Andres (drums), and Yadier Noa Chamble (bass). View the evidence here. The quartet promises throwbacks, world premieres, and original tunes/ arrangements. Don’t miss this special collaboration! This is the second date in a three-month/three-date residency for Dan during his brief time in the Bay Area. He was in Cali, Colombia for virtually all of 2020, and returns there in early April. Catch him now at Bird & Beckett. Pay what you can by Paypal ([email protected]) Venmo (@birdandbeckett) Cash app ($BirdBeckett) Cash/check also good! Email us your pledge and drop something by the shop. $20 is ideal. $2-$200 sliding scale! The musicians must be paid and its up to all of us who have the capacity to step up to the plate and get it done!…

Big fun ahead. Tune in on your phone, but if you’re set up for it, it’ll sound & look that much better at home with a nice screen and some good speakers. First up, this evening, The Ollie Dudek Trio — Ollie on bass and leading the charge, with a fantastic pair of musicians — Javier Santiago on piano and Geechi Taylor on drums. This will be a fabulous, classic piano trio date directed from the bass! That’s tonight, Friday, 2/5/21, at 7:30, live streamed on our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Pay what you can by Paypal, Venmo or the Cash app. See the bottom of the video screen for info on that. Or email us with your pledge and drop by with cash or a check. $20 is ideal. $2-$200 sliding scale! Support our local musicians and the venues that present them! Your psychic rewards will be huge,…

A 31st birthday blowout for an exceptional young trumpeter, composer & producer. Isaac Schwartz on drums Curtis Aikens on bass Greg Jacobs on piano Noah Frank on trumpet Noah picked up the trumpet at age ten, spent five summers on the scene in NYC, busked for six months in Central Park in Manhattan and for seven months, as many as five days a week, in Golden Gate Park during the pandemic. And still he plays on. He’s barely getting started! Come to our live stream prepared to donate to his cause! Consider it your cover charge for this Saturday night jazz club date, when lights are low! $20 is nice, but $2 to $200, it’s all good. When musicians’ work is consumed for free, their ability to stay in the profession is challenged. From each according to your ability… Click on the photo below for Noah’s last outing at Bird…

Walter Earl, piano Arlington Houston, bass J Paul the Drummer, drums One of San Francisco’s finest working trios, led by an extraordinary pianist. Walter Earl, 6/19/20 solo concert Catch tonight’s trio show on YouTube or Facebook, or from the screen at the top of this webpage! But be aware the stream from here (the website) is a new thing and still a bit glitchy. If you run into any trouble at all (and you might!), you’ll find the stream going just fine on our YouTube channel or Facebook page right up to 9pm. 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. $20 is nice. Two dollars or two hundred, it’s all good. We’re guaranteeing $150 per musician in our live streams during this pandemic period and rely significantly…

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…