$20 suggested donation; any amount is appreciated Among the most delightful dates we host at the bookshop are the occasional appearances of Friends of Old Puppy, playing from their eclectic bag of tunes. By popular demand, here they come again! Just the thing for a Sunday afternoon in the late summer. Steven Strauss, ukulele Greg Pratt, guitar Ed Johnson, washtub bass Cynthia Wilson, drums  

$10 suggested donation; any amount appreciated Kabir, 15th century mystic poet.  Rural visionary, satirist, improviser, weaver, lyricist, heretic before there was even a word for it.  Encompasser, dramatizer, transcender of all known religious dichotomies.  Electrifying, re-vivifying, calming, startling.  Egalitarian.  Inspiring. Walker Brents III addresses topics philosophical, poetic, and never pedantic on the last Sunday afternoon of the month.  

$20 suggested/sliding scale available. Talk about your San Francisco jazz… On the fourth Friday of each month, our weekly jazz in the bookshop series features The 230 Jones Street, Local 6 Literary Jazz Band — in direct line of descent from the Chuck Peterson Trio, which started the whole “jazz in the bookshop” thing 17 years ago. These five musicians  — Ray Loeckle, tenor sax; Jerry Logas, bari sax, clarinet, flute, vocals; Glen Deardorff, guitar; Dean Reilly, bass; Tony Johnson, drums — have all put in decades of work on the local jazz scene, dating back to the early 1950s. The band was originally formed by multi-instrumentalist Chuck Peterson (tenor sax, baritone sax, flute), who was a union activist particularly in his prime years (the 1950s and 1960s) and throughout his career, hence his nod to the address of Local 6 of the American Federation of Musicians, where he and…

$20 cover charge; sliding scale available. Join us in a celebration of Thu’s gorgeous new cd, “Thu Ho with the Noel Jewkes Trio: Live at the Sausalito Seahorse” — eight exquisite jazz standards interpreted by a fabulous singer just making her mark on the jazz world and three consummate veterans whose talents are incontrovertible. At Bird & Beckett, Thu will be ably supported by the incomparable Dr. Legato himself — Noel Jewkes, the superb and oh-so-tasteful Adam Shulman on piano and the swinging, ultra-hip Chris Amberger on bass. Do join us!

$20 cover/sliding scale available. Trumpet player, composer, arranger & visual artist George Sams, from St. Louis, leads a quintet comprising Richard “Zyc” Wood on sax and flute (from Los Angeles), Aaron Parker on flute (from St. Louis) and still, to this day, residing in the Bay Area, Carleton Hoffman, percussion; Joe McKinley, bass; and Gerald Nicosia, poetry.   Already a veteran of the B.A.G. era in St. Louis, Sams was a founding member of the San Francisco Jazz Society alongside Orrin Keepnews and Herb Wong; co-founded the bands United Front and Middle Passage, both key San Francisco units in the mid- to late 1970s; was a developer of curriculum, instructor and then Music Department chair at New College of California; and has consulted for numerous jazz festivals and arts organizations.     He has performed throughout Europe and the United States as a jazz instrumentalist and has made recordings under…

Hosted by San Francisco troubadour-in-chief Jerry Ferraz and San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck. Owen was writing serious poetry from the time of the late ’60s ferment at SFSU and continues to this day; Greg has four highly regarded collections of poems to his name.  Both fine poets, for sure! No charge, but bring a few bucks to help us reward the featured poets! Sign up for the open mic before the features at 7, or during the break.

Art Blakey is one of the fathers of modern bebop drumming. For decades his group the Jazz Messengers was a proving ground and launching pad for many young musicians who became jazz giants in their own right. As part of his enduring legacy, it’s our privilege to honor the memory of Art Blakey 100 years after his birth. Come join drummer Jeff Minnieweather and four Bay Area legends for an evening celebrating Art Blakey’s centennial birthday. Warren Gale, trumpet Darius Babazadeh, saxophone Grant Levin, piano Chris Amberger, bass Jeff Minnieweather, drums Says Jeff, “I have chosen several tunes from only a handful of LP’s. With over 100+ LP’s recorded, it’s really hard to pick from such a vast library. “I’ve tried to pick tunes that are groove based. I recently saw an interview from 1985 where Mr. Blakey said, ‘If people can’t tap their feet, it’s too fast and not…

By now, the poet Tongo-Eisen Martin needs little introduction in San Francisco. A native son, he’s made his unique and indelible mark in poetry, prison education and hip hop, and has gained huge respect in recent years for his public poetry recitations of work alluded to in, if not quite contained by, two remarkable books: Someone’s Dead Already (Bootstrap Press, 2015) and Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights, 2018). Poet No Land “has surged onto the New York scene over the past couple of years, performing in duos, trios, or solo, mesmerizing audiences with her precise diction and incisive commentary.” She’s been deemed a “force to be reckoned with” by JazzRightNow.com, which made these assessments in a review of dates at La Mama and Spectrum. The January 2019 La Mama performance, in duo with violinist Joanna Mattrey, kicked off with No Land’s “Spiritual Auto-bio-geo-graphy,”  according to the review, “the most…

Evan Price – violin Owen Clapp – bass Jordan Samuels – guitar Evan Price is steadily gaining recognition as one of the world’s most confident voices in extra-classical string playing. A native of Detroit, MI, his musical background includes some earnest dues-paying in a variety of genres. From square dance bands to string quartets, from jamming with blues bands to busking in Greektown, Evan’s youthful pursuits all informed his violin-playing and left him with a deep love of chamber music in all forms. As a young competitive fiddler he won his share of awards, having been named the U.S. Scottish Fiddling Champion, the Kentucky State Fiddle Champion, Canadian Junior Fiddle Champion, and Canadian Novelty Fiddling Champion. He also performed with some of the masters of iddle lore—Stephane Grappelli, Johnny Frigo, Claude “Fiddler” Williams, Johnny Gimble, Buddy Spicher, and Vassar Clements—as well as a diverse array of pop icons from Stevie…

Scott Foster, guitar David Boyce, saxophone Bill Noertker, bass Dave Mihaly, drums For more than fifteen years, guitarist Scott Foster has been giving Bird & Beckett a great jazz ride — each time out across new terrain. Nowadays, we count on him for a great show on the third Friday of every month. Tonight, he’s bringing together a quartet that’s bound to open your ears!   Says Scott, “David Boyce, saxophone, Bill Noertker, bass and David Mihaly, drums, cover a place in the musical spectrum that lies beyond category. Their ability to take a personal and unique approach to repertoire and a fresh take on original far reaching material will make us able to open up the entire musical universe in terms of material. In addition they are icons of the new music scene and are improvisers that can create boundless ideas from a small musical gesture. It will make…