Community Music Center instructors and students present a wide-ranging program to celebrate Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rat. The opening set will include a gamut of music from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. The second set will feature a jazz ensemble led by pianist Randy Craig, featuring, among others, reed player Ken Rosen and bassist Richard Saunders. One of San Francisco’s most crucial cultural institutions, CMC has been providing low and no-cost lessons to San Francisco residents for 100 years.

$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…

Gigging jazz musicians convened in a “town hall” discussion at the bookshop on February 25th to discuss the prospects for an “Independent Musicians Alliance” – a solidarity organization without dues or meetings – to encourage a free flow of information among musicians that might facilitate collective action seeking overall improvement in wages, benefits and working conditions for working artists across a range of workplaces. The IMA idea is the brainchild of Mario Guarneri, founder and artistic director of Jazz in the Neighborhood, with the input and cooperation of Eric Whittington from Bird & Beckett, and the two seek to push it into being with this February 25th brainstorming session and a benefit at the bookshop on February 29th. (A town hall meeting at the Flight Deck in Oakland earlier this month on February 5th brought musicians, promoters and experts in law and arts advocacy together for an initial consideration of…

$20 suggested donation; pay what you can. Grant Levin, piano Giulio Xavier Cetto, bass Genius Wesley, drums Pianist Grant Levin has gained great acclaim on the San Francisco jazz scene since his move here in 2001; since that time, Bird & Beckett has been pleased and honored to present him hundreds of times — and we look forward with great anticipation to his last-Sunday-of-the-month bookings through June. He will field a variety of ensembles, drawing on the wealth of fantastic jazz talent the City proudly boasts, exploring a wide range of material. We’ll accept a limited number of reservations for each date by phone beginning the Monday before the engagement. Should you make a reservation, you’ll need to claim your seat 15 minutes before the show and, please, bring cash! Thanks for your kind understanding and cooperation!

$20 cover charge; sliding scale available On paper, the Pedro Pastrana Ensemble might seem like your traditional jazz quartet, composed of a horn, bass, drums and a chordal instrument, in this case, the cuatro. However, it’s the integration of the cuatro that defines the Ensemble’s unique style, connecting the earthy quality of a folk sound with the sophisticated harmony of modern jazz and the syncopated rhythms of the Caribbean. The Ensemble’s sound is not dominated by either of these genres but is defined by their intersection. Simply put: Tower of Power meets Pat Metheny meets Familia Cepeda meets “Mapeyé” meets Evel Knievel. In order to create this sound, Pedro found the right players in: David Pinto on bass. Known by his work with Susana Baca as musical director and bassist, David brings a sense of stability and center to the band noticeable from the first note he plays. But at…

$20 suggested donation; any amount appreciated For black history month, David Boyce leads the band and audience through a discussion and performance of the history of Black Music in America, and specifically, Jazz. The stories behind the music as it evolved from its New Orleans roots, through the swing era, be bop, hard bop, the sixties revolution and fusion. An evening of discussion and performance touching on these distinct eras and evolutions in the music and, as well, the environment in which the art was growing. David Boyce sax and discussion leader Scott Foster, guitar Charles Thomas, bass Cairo McCockran, drums and percussion        

Triple Book Release Reading for Gossamer Nevele Grimoire, by Derek Fenner (Bird & Beckett); Death Under Construction, by Ava Koohbor (Ugly Ducking Presse/Bird & Beckett); and Resolution of the West, by Nicholas James Whittington (Bootstrap Press) Derek Fenner is an artist, educator, poet, and researcher. He earned his MFA in writing and poetics from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. In 2000, with Ryan Gallagher, he co-founded Bootstrap Press, which has published over 40 books by poets across the country. Ava Koohbor is a native Farsi speaker poet and visual artist. Her poems have appeared in various publications. Her chapbooks Triangle Squared (Bootstrap Press) and Sinusoidal Forms (Lew Gallery). Death Under Construction is her first full collection of poetry in English. She believes that each artist is a medium to transfer the world of possibilities to what is. Nicholas James Whittington is a poet, scholar, educator, editor, printer, and publisher born and raised in San Francisco. Recent chapbooks include Provisions (PUSH Press, 2017) and Indefinite Sessions (Gas Meter Books, 2016). Resolution of the West (Bootstrap Press,…

Kimi Sugioka’s brand new Manic D Press poetry book is Wile & Wing. Anne Waldman said, “Kimi Sugioka is a poet with a lot of guises: maternal, witchy, passionate, detached observer…She moves through the female cycle confidently, poised, strong in her observance and power.” Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and raised in Berkeley, California, Kimi Sugioka is a poet, songwriter, and educator. She performs her work frequently throughout the Bay Area. She has worked in public education for decades, and earned her BA from San Francisco State University and MFA from the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Born and raised in San Francisco, CA, Thea Matthews earned her BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley, where she studied and taught June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. She is a published poet / scholar / activist who writes on the complexities of humanity, grief, and resiliency.

$20 suggested donation / pay what you can In the tradition of brother vocal duets and the classic bluegrass trio, three veteran bluegrass musicians grace the stage this afternoon.

In conversation with Alice Adams’ son, the San Francisco artist Peter Linenthal — and indulging in a slide show that captures Adams through the years — Adams’ biographer, Carol Sklenicka, brings the towering fiction writer back to life. Alice Adams, born in Virginia in 1926, raised in North Carolina, educated at Radcliffe and a long-time San Franciscan until her death in 1999, is overdue for a rediscovery, reassessment and resurgence; and that she’s getting, with this wonderfully detailed and insightful biography (Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer, Scribner, 2019) and current reissues by Vintage of a major short story collection (The Stories of Alice Adams, Knopf, 2002) and her novel Superior Women (Knopf, 1984). Although Adams wrote fiction seriously and prolifically from a young age, her first novel, Careless Love, was published in 1966 when she was 40 years old. Soon, however, her short stories and novels were appearing in…

$20 cover charge / sliding scale available A JitN Guaranteed Fair Wage Fund date Without question, Calvin Keys is one of the greats of Bay Area jazz guitar, with a worldwide reputation and a long career under his belt. He’s released at least a dozen albums as a leader since his 1971 debut, appears as a sideman on six Ahmad Jamal albums released between 1971 and 1980, plus numerous others. His most recent, Close Enough for Love, was released by Lifeforce in 2015; Electric Keys was released by Wide Hive Records in 2013. Mr. Keys recently returned from sold out dates in Germany and France celebrating Oakland’s Black Jazz record label, which released his first two albums, Shawn Neeq (1971) and Proceed with Caution (1974). We’re pleased and proud to host Mr. Keys’ return to Bird & Beckett on February 15th, just days after a Los Angeles celebration of Black…

$20 suggested donation; any amount appreciated Five spectacularly talented players bring the passions of youth to the romance of Valentine’s Day.

Two poets, long-time friends, descend on Bird & Beckett this evening. Timotha, from her home a stone’s throw away and Bob, from elsewhere. Timotha, chodpa, gate player, has pilgrimaged in Tibet, Nepal and India following the footsteps of Machig Lapdron, an 11C female Buddha/saint. She has climbed to 14.8 thousand feet to sit in ancient, sacred, buttery caves with her sangha. She is a life-long torchbearer and priest on Hekate’s path. She practices Vajrayana Buddhism and western magic traditions every day. In the past, she has been a gun carrying revolutionary working in solidarity with the African People’s Socialist Party. She now participates in the movement to abolish prisons and the death penalty. She is queer. These are the myths, identity markers, signposts on the trail of an authentic life. You will not see them. She has published the broadside Taboo and a chapbook, Bahamian Journal. Timotha lives in San…

$20 suggested donation; any amount appreciated Riley Bandy & James Mahone, saxophones Matt Clark, piano Caroline Chung, bass Ruth Price, drums Citizens Jazz is a revolving collective of some of the Bay Area’s best up-and-coming and veteran musicians led by bassist Caroline Chung, who has been gigging professionally for over a decade playing in bands ranging from jazz and funk to Brazilian and Latin; she has studied under the late great Herbie Lewis, performs regularly in the Bay Area, and has organized several Bay Area Women in Jazz series at Red Poppy Art House. She has opened up for the Buena Vista Social Club’s last U.S. tour at Mountain Winery, as well as for Ozomatli at the New Parish with Afro-Latin funk band Sang Matiz. Each time out, the Citizens Jazz combo brings a different element of magic that happens in the spontaneity of the language of jazz and improvisation.