$20 suggested donation; contribute what you can A siren from the shore, Moonshine Maybelline lures you with spellbinding ballads, mesmerizes with moody soundscapes and crashes your broken heart into their country-rock. Catherine Foreman’s vocals and songs are the centerpiece of this 5-piece band from San Francisco. Sparks first flew when she teamed up with twang-rockers Bob Spector and Ted O’Connell of the Gold Diggers, and the lineup solidified with local pedal steel ace Ian Taylor Sutton and drummer at large Steve Pearson. Moonshine Maybelline was introduced to the world with a live performance on college radio leader KALX , earning them a spot among KALX’s “Best of 2014” and a South by Southwest showcase, where they opened for hometown favorite Chuck Prophet. MM’s “End Of The Road” EP was released in 2018 and has been featured on radio, including KPFA’s “America’s Back 40” program. The band continues to shine on…

Herman Melville was born in 1819, making 2019 his 200th Anniversary Year. Celebrate his genius with us at Bird & Beckett! Come at 2pm to Bird & Beckett to hear readings by the Melville Society from Moby Dick, Melville’s masterpiece about Captain Ahab and his obsessive quest for the great white whale, Moby Dick. Sign up on the spot to read aloud from the book in the twenty-four hour marathon to take place at the Maritime Museum on Beach Street at San Francisco’s Aquatic Park October 19th-20th Once we’ve really heard the book from the hardy crew that awaits you later at the marathon, Walker Brents III plumbs the depths of Melville’s mind from his childhood intellectual maturation — signaled by his matriculation into the English Department of his grammar and prep school on Sept. 28, 1829, at age ten — to his thirst and quest for a life at…

With the support of Jazz in the Neighborhood’s Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund, the Jazz Philanthropists Union presents… B3B4 $20 cover charge; $10 for students / musicians / low income.   B3B4 is the musical conversation between Bay Area jazz veterans Tom Griesser (tenor sax), Scott Foster (guitar), Kevin Gerzevits (organ) and Dan Foltz (drums). The band combines the soulful growl of the Hammond B3 organ, the resonant bite of the tenor saxophone, the bluesy fluidity of the electric guitar and the propulsive groove of the drums. B3B4 is heavily steeped in blues and bop, featuring a repertoire including works by Jimmy Smith, Billy Strayhorn, Neal Hefti and Miles Davis, in addition to their own compositions. Their performances range from mid-tempo blues to warm, intricate ballads to driving up-tempo barnburners, and they reveal the fluency and experience of the group’s members in a wide range of genres. Our presentation of B3B4…

$20 suggested donation; any amount appreciated Denise Perrier is celebrated from Havana to St. Petersburg and here at home for her elegant contralto, for her phrasing and swing, for her unparalleled interpretation of tunes drawn from the jazz canon and the Great American Songbook — the timeless popular music that poured out of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and the little offices and garrets of songwriters across the land from the teens and ’20s through the 1950s. Her place among the top rank of San Francisco’s jazz vocalists is unquestioned. Add her to 230 Jones Street, and now you’ve got a night to remember.  

Mark Statmen will be reading from his book Exile Home and will also read from his translations of the Uruguayan poet Martín Barea Mattos, Never Made in America. A native New Yorker, Mark studied under Kenneth Koch at Columbia University in the 1970s, and has published a number of collections of his own work as well as translations of poets including Federico García Lorca and José María Hinojosa. John Ashbery cited his translation with writer and translator Pablo Medina of García Lorca’s A Poet in New York as “The definitive version of Lorca’s masterpiece, in language that is as alive and molten today as was the original.” More information on Mark can be found at this link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Statman. Arturo Mantecón is a poet, story writer and translator born in Laredo, Texas and raised in Detroit. His poetry has appeared in La Ventana Abierta, Poetry Now and various anthologies. His short…

Trombonist Rick Brown! It’s a birthday bash! Rick Brown, trombone; Grant Levin, piano Carl Herder, bass Pepe Jacobo, drums

$15 suggested donation. Dave Tidball, clarinets; Galen Grant, percussion Dave writes, “The name Slug Teacher is derived from a line in the poem Here In This Spring, written in 1933 by iconic Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. I’ve long been fascinated by his work, not least for the sheer musicality of the rhythms, textures and timbres of his creations. Slug Teacher takes off on musical explorations directly inspired by the poems. “My accomplice in these adventures is the master percussionist Galen Grant. I will be reading six of my favourite Dylan Thomas poems. Spaces which occur naturally in the poems (between verses sometimes, but also at other times) will be augmented by spontaneous improvisations by myself on clarinet and bass clarinet along with Galen on drums. Please join us for what promises to be a unique experience.”

$20 cover charge. The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents…   Russian Telegraph Beth Custer – clarinet, voice David James – guitar, voice Diana Mangano- voice Chris Grady – trumpet Jordan Glasgow – keyboards Keith McArthur – bass John Hanes – drums The brainchild of Beth Custer (Trance Mission, Club Foot Orchestra) and David James (Afrofunk Experience, Spearhead, The Coup), who had the inspiration to merge a couple of their separate bands into one. It’s a blend of Beth Custer Ensemble, with their Art Song, their clarinets, and their trumpet; David James’s GPS, with it’s quixotically “political” instrumentals; mixed with a dose of Curtis Bumpy’s uniquely funky bass and soulful keyboards. RT plays music from the catalogues of each of these entities, along with originals written expressly for this group, and choice covers of music from composers ranging from Nelson Cavaquinho to Chris Cornell.

It’s the Lost Trio plus One! The One is venerated leader, guitarist Scott Foster. And the Trio, lost and once again found? None other than Philip Greenlief on reeds, Dan Seamans on bass and Tom Hassett on drums. Together, they reprise a July 2015 encounter on the bookshop stage that was nothin’ but thrilling! and so shall it be again! Get down to the shop and find out for yourself! Says Scott,  “We’ll be exploring Monk’s recorded works. By that we mean not only his compositions but also the wide range of standards and other music he recorded and performed during his legendary career. As you know this is a combination of of my favorite musicians playing my favorite music. I will be having a blast I hope it will be fun for others as well.” We don’t doubt that! And remember to BYOB and a $20, or whatever you…

While we finalize another fistful of posts on upcoming events, here’s a little round up of the next two weekends. You can always click on the “Events Calendar” link in the navigation bar above to see what’s on tap going forward. Full posts on the next eight or ten events coming soon where you can get all the detail you crave! But for now, we can tell you that on the weekend starting out Friday 9/20 with Scott Foster + the Lost Trio doing Monk’s Works,  you’ll also hear Beth Custer and David James’ project called Russian Telegraph on Saturday the 21st & Slug Teacher with Dave Tidball and Galen Grant on Sunday the 22nd at 2pm followed by the Rick Brown Quartet featuring Grant Levin at 4:30… Thursday 9/26, you’ll hear a reading by poets Mark Statman and Arturo Mantecon, then Denise Perrier with the 230 Jones Street on…

Lenore Weiss reads poems from Barcelona and Prague, and flash fiction from her chapbook, “Holding on to Fringes of Love.” Sharon Doubiago reads from her recent works, Naked to the Earth and The Visit. Lenore Weiss’ poetry collections are a trilogy about love, loss, and being mortal: Cutting Down the Last Tree on Easter Island (West End Press, 2012); Two Places (Kelsay Books, 2014), and The Golem (Hadassa Word Press, 2017). In addition, she has published a collection of flash fiction and a children’s story, “The Glimmerine.” Lenore tutors middle-school and high-school students in reading and writing and volunteers at Chapter510 in Oakland, California Her blog can be found at www.lenoreweiss.com. Sharon Doubiago is a prolific writer of memoir and poetry, whose latest books are Naked to the Earth, “a wide-ranging, lyrical, jarring, playful, elegiac, dissonant, amazing quest to understand who we are and how we became who we are…”…

Todd Swenson, guitar Derek Evans, vocals Ian Ratzer, pianoPaul Olguin, bass Justin Berthiaume, drums The best time you could imagine on this Sunday afternoon! ’tis true!

Chuck Poling, country & bluegrass raconteur incomparable, delivers a personal history of a Precita Park childhood in the 1960s and ‘70s through spoken word and song, with an able assist from his wife, Jeanie. In a journey that took him from Catholic school and kickball to rock stars and revolution, Chuck was just a kid trying to make sense out of it all. He credits his always-in-play gift of gab with helping him avoid trouble from larger, tougher schoolchildren, or pretty much everybody. The longer he kept them laughing, the more likely he was to keep his lunch money. Chuck was born and raised and stubbornly continues to reside, with Jeanie, in San Francisco. He spent his childhood years living on Precita Park and now lives in the Inner Richmond. As a marketing professional, he’s worked for iconic San Francisco institutions including the Chronicle and the Gap. Chuck is also…

Noel Jewkes, reeds Grant Levin, piano Charles Thomas, bass Rick Rivera, drums

The classic sound of the Hammond B3 organ trio… Wayne de la Cruz, organ Ray Scott, guitar Jim Chanteloup, drums