Todd Melicker regularly communes with the fog of San Francisco’s Outer Richmond. His most recent book, is this the body / if hovers is just out from lyric press. rendezvous, his first book, was published by Rescue Press in 2013 as the winner of the second annual Black Box Prize. He is the author of the chapbooks the immaculate autopsy (Achiote Press) and king & queen (LRL Editions). His work can also be found in VOLT, jubilat, Verse, and Tupelo Quarterly. Joseph Noble’s poetry has appeared in Hambone, OR, New American Writing, Five Fingers Review, The New Review of Literature, Eleven Eleven, and other journals. Three of his essays on the poet George Oppen have appeared in Talisman, Aufgabe, and Sagetrieb. He has published three books of poetry, An Ives Set (2006, lyric& Press), Antiphonal Airs (Skylight Press, 2013), and Within Hearing (2018, lyric& Press) and a chapbook, “Homage to…

Francis Vanek, saxophone Terry Rodriguez, piano Chris Amberger, bass Mike Quigg, drums Francis is a legend of the North Coast. His quartet this afternoon will be right in sync. He and Terry and Chris go back quite aways. Mike’s a young drummer whose reputation is rock solid in this town and he’s crossed the Bird & Beckett bandstand to great effect several times in the past couple of years. This is jazz. If you were here last Saturday night, you heard Francis in Grant Levin’s quartet. Come out and hear what Francis has in mind for you tonight. $20 cover, like most Saturday nights. BYOB, you’ll save some money there.

$10 per set donation is much appreciated… whatever you can manage! Flat broke? No problem, pay what you will… Al Molina, trumpet Jerry Logas, reeds, flute & vocals Larry Chinn, piano Dean Reilly, bass Vince Lateano, drums   It’s loose, and it’s deep; at one and the same time. Come out and find out for yourself. Oh, but bring your own bottle! We’ve got water, thanks to your tax dollars! God helps the child… Oh, and speaking of dollars? These are five professional musicians, four with six decades under their belt, one with three. We’re estimating here. But the point being, this is how they make their living– playing for you! They call it playing, but it’s really a profession. Bring ten or twenty for the musicians. Until socialism comes to America, it’s up to the rugged individual to pay the piper. Love you madly. Thanks for being part of…

Francis Vanek, sax Grant Levin, piano Giulio Xavier, bass Jeff Minnieweather, drums

SLUGish Ensemble is an amoeba-like musical gathering of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, guitars & rhythm section. It’s music utilizes traditional acoustic instruments to create layers of pocketed-grooves and melodies that blur the lines between pop, rhythm & blues, jazz improvisation & minimalism.         Steven Lugerner – Bass Clarinet & Baritone Saxophone          Mike Gamble – Guitar         Justin Rock – Guitar         Maya Kronfeld – Piano         Tyler Harlow – Bass         Michael Mitchell – Drums Multi-instrumentalist // Composer, Steven Lugerner maintains musical ties between multiple music scenes including his home of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago & New York City. As a bandleader, Lugerner leads both SLUGish Ensemble, an amoeba-like group dedicated to original compositions & arrangements in addition to JACKNIFE, a hard-hitting post-bop quintet dedicated to the music of late alto saxophonist Jackie McLean. Lugerner has released multiple…

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 — once known as The Chuck Peterson Quintet — five musicians whose individual histories on the local jazz scene date back to the 1950s. The quintet now comprises Ray Loeckle on tenor sax, Jerry Logas on baritone sax, flute and vocals; Glen Deardorff on guitar, Dean Reilly on bass and Tony Johnson on drums. $10-20 suggested donation; $2-10 for students, musicians, limited income.

The Agitator: William Bailey and the First American Uprising Against Nazism is Peter Duffy’s account of the 1935 action led by the young Merchant Marine Seaman Bill Bailey when the SS Bremen, the flagship of Hitler’s commercial fleet, arrived in New York Harbor flying the Nazi flag, just days after violent anti-Semitic riots rocked Berlin. Bailey and a few compatriots snuck onto the ship while a lavish party was in full swing, climbed its flagpole and tore down the Nazi flag. A brawl ensued, Bailey and his gang were arrested and acquitted in a trial that transfixed the nation and shed light on the swift and brutal rise of fascist Germany. A few years later, Bailey later fought against fascism in Spain with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and during & after World War II he was a business agent for the Marine Firemen’s Union, until he was expelled from the…

Homenagem Brasileira! sorry, this date has been postponed due to illness!  a new date will be announced soon Vocalist Sandy Cressman leads a stellar band embracing the diversity of Brazil’s musical traditions. Featuring Jeff Cressman on trombone, Murray Low on piano, David Belove on bass and Dillon Vado on drums. Cressman is well known for her passionate and rhythmic singing of the repertoire of the great composers and performers of Brazilian Jazz, and for her two critically acclaimed CDs, “Homenagem Brasileira “and “Brasil-Sempre no Coração”. In 2017, Sandy released a CD of all original Brazilian Jazz compositions, created in collaborations with such notable musicians as Jovino Santos Neto, SpokFrevo, and Ian Faquini. In 2015 and 2017, she was a featured vocalist on the main stage of Carnaval in Recife, Brasil. This Easter Sunday, bring your family, or find your family here! Enjoy a band that’s thrilled audiences at venues including SFJazz,…

The Dave Parker Septet performs three newly commissioned works by JAB, plus masterpieces by Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman & more. View composer JAB’s CV at this link: http://heardmusic.com/bio/jabs_cv Jerry Logas, baritone sax Hal Richards, tenor sax Henry Hung, trumpet Charles Hamilton, trombone Karl Evangelista, guitar Pepe Jacobo, drums Dave Parker, bass JAB, composer Long-time Glen Park residents will remember the halcyon days of the Red Rock Lounge, Ric Lopez’s elegant little corner bar at Diamond & Chenery before Le P’tit Laurent took its place… and Friday nights in Glen Park always sizzled with jazz from a fiery quintet that featured Dave Parker on bass along with Jerry Logas on saxes and the late trumpeter Mike Pitre. Nowadays, besides a few choice farmers market gigs, they can be found regularly at Sheba Lounge on Fillmore and Barebottle Brewing Company on Cortland. Dave’s group has grown to seven and eight pieces over the…

Trumpet player Kenny Warren touring from his base New York City is joined by San Francisco players Raffi Garabedian, sax; Miles Wick, bass; Jon Arkin, drums. $10-20 sliding scale cover charge. Kenny Warren has been active in New York’s improvised music scene since 2006. His quartet’s 2017 release “Thank You for Coming to Life” on Whirlwind Recordings has been hailed as “Boldly creative and superbly orchestrated… A masterful album… Stunning” by France’s Radio REC. He has released two LPs with his song-writing outfit Laila and Smitty which Bird is the Worm calls “massively genuine and unabashedly heart-on-the-sleeve open and honest.” He is a frequent collaborator/sideman in a number of NYC music circles. Kenny grew up in Denver, CO, a city with a rich tradition of creative trumpet playing. You can listen and buy Kenny’s music on Bandcamp. Raffi Garabedian (tenor saxophone) hails from Berkeley, California, and attended Berkeley High School,…

  Tom Griesser on sax and clarinet Scott Foster on guitar Scott Chapek on bass   Musical associations that date back many years for Scott… …as he says, it’ll be like old times, good times! $10-20 suggested donation  

At the legendary Sun Studios in February 2017, two sidemen on a recording session bonded over 1950s rock’n’roll music.  Returning to New York, they discovered they were Harlem neighbors, and the Harlem River Noise was born. Kyle Lacy & Cody Gibson, Harlem River Noise, take the stage with a quartet at Bird & Beckett Thursday evening just before hitting the highway to Viva Las Vegas this weekend. As Harlem River Noise, a quartet that played 161 dates in 2018, they dive deep into the rockabilly born from New Orleans R&B’s marriage to Memphis country & gospel. Recorded live to tape in 2017, their album “Currents” captures a marathon 2-day recording session. Two tracks from the album, ‘I’ve Been Shakin’ and ‘South to Carolina,’ were featured on the Nashville DJ James Riley’s Rockabilly + Blues Radio Hour. Adobe & Teardrops called the album “a breezy stroll (or lindy hop) through Saturday…

Cosmopolitan pillars of the North Beach poetry scene, Ronald Sauer and Agneta Falk have riveted poetry audiences in cafes and auditoriums, on outdoor festival stages, in vast amphitheaters and narrow alleyways… they return to Bird & Beckett with poems in hand… Agneta Falk was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1946. She is a poet, visual artist, editor and translator.  In her twenties she moved to England, and in 1998 she moved to San Francisco. Ronald F. Sauer is a poet/New Yorker in North Beach, San Francisco. A compulsive talker, musician, artist, art collector & curator, translator of Baudelaire (and many a great French poet), Summa-cum-laude for Horizontal Angelology (Ph.d, Oxymoron Divinity School), upstart cosmologist, aficionado of insomniac starlight, the bane of pretense, philately and cheeky ducks; he is also haberdasher to the blithely impoverished.  

The Seducers have had a monthly gig at Bird & Beckett for three years, playing classic, outlaw and honky tonk songs by the likes of Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Bobby Bare, plus originals and a few from left field. Look for the Seducers every second Sunday in San Francisco’s premier little bookshop/listening room. Bring a beer if that’s your inclination, but for one outing a month you’ll get a nice break from the barroom clatter that can sometimes obscure the beauty of these fabulous bits of American genius. You won’t regret it for a minute. BYOB and kick back. It all makes for a lovely way to spend a Sunday evening before returning to the working grind. Joe Goldmark, pedal steel guitar Mitch Polzak, lead guitar and vocals Hank Maninger, bass guitar and vocals Kenny Owen, drums $10-20 suggested donation. $5 for students/musicians/fixed income.

Lewis Jordan (saxophone and vocal) Sandi Poindexter (violin) Karl Evangelista (guitar) Erich Olen Hunt (bass) Jimmy Biala (drums and percussion) Lewis Jordan…plays a mean sax, sweet and mellow, sharp and staccato, richly complex, as the mood demands.  Jordan is a triple threat– a virtuoso on alto saxophone, a deft and ingratiating comic actor and a poetically humorous writer. — Robert Hurwitt Music at Large is Lewis’ vehicle for jazz expression.  Much can be learned about the man and the artist from his website at www.lewisjordan.com. Saxophonist Lewis Jordan writes: I began Music at Large in 1976, dedicated to interdisciplinary and multicultural productions, with presentations incorporating music, theater, dance, poetry and visual art.  Since that time, Music at Large has been a vehicle for producing musical performances of my own and others’ work, plays, and panels. The genesis of the Music at Large is the commitment to bringing people together by bridging arbitrary distinctions that…