A Memorial Day Weekend tradition at Bird & Beckett! The Evangenitals, led by the ferociously funny and intelligent multiple threat Juli Crockett, take no prisoners, but, man, are you going to love the battlefield skirmishes! They’re up from Los Angeles for El Rio’s Shit-Kicking Memorial Day extravaganza, and as usual make a pit stop at Bird & Beckett the night before for a couple sets. None like ’em. Join us! $15 cover charge to help us pay these intrepid mariners of melody. There’s a sliding scale available to anyone who really needs it! BYOB. Fifteen and a Mickey’s Big Mouth ain’t gonna break the bank for most of y’all!      

Frank Tusa Trio John Klopotowski, guitar Frank Tusa, bass Akira Tana,drums w/guest Rich Crandall, piano $15 suggested donation. Frank Tusa, bassist, composer, educator, has had a wide variety of recording and performing experiences with such diverse artists as Art Blakey, Buddy Montgomery, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Bobby Hutcherson, Johnny Griffin, Art Farmer, Randy Brecker, Freddie Hubbard, John Abercrombie, and many other great jazz artists. His early recordings are with jazz legends Paul Bley and Don Cherry. Frank was one of the original members of Dave Liebman’s critically acclaimed group “Lookout Farm.” In 1980, Frank relocated to San Francisco after spending many years learning and working through the ranks of his native New York City scene. After arriving in San Francisco, he very quickly became known as one of the finest musicians in the Bay Area and has been in constant demand for his solid rhythmic anchoring and eloquent melodic lines.…

Walker Brents III has been an important aspect of the Bird & Beckett enterprise since he emerged from the stacks of the old store down on Diamond Street (this would have been in at the tail end of the 20th century, just as the new millennium was dawning.) We believe he must have materialized from a box of tattered and dusty books, with strange titles on their worn spines nearly obscured by the passage of time. Over the course of these twenty years, he has dazzled our patrons with his intellect and insights, pondering as he does the timeless visionary manifestations of such figures as Joan of Arc, William Shakespeare, William Butler Yeats, Rainer Maria Rilke, Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan, the creators and propagators of mythological texts and epic tales that include the Kalevala, the story of Layla and Majnun, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and yes, William Blake, whose vision…

One of the very great jazz pianists on the Bay Area scene, Glen Pearson leads a fine quartet with saxophonist Robert Stewart, bassist Heshima Mark Williams and drummer Ruthie Price. $20 cover charge / sliding scale available. Pianist Glen Pearson currently tours in Count Basie’s chair with the Count Basie Orchestra. He also heads the Music Department at the College of Alameda. Frank Hanny, whose Chez Hanny concert series in San Francisco boasts many of the Bay Area’s greatest musicians as well as eminent personages from New York and other scenes, writes that Glen’s “performances on stage, television, radio, and in recording studios have included his well known position as principle keyboardist for Regina Belle, as well as pianist and orchestrator with such notables as Jimmy Scott, Ernestine Anderson, Dianne Reeves, Marlena Shaw, Bobby Hutcherson, Delfeayo Marsalis, James Moody, Frank Morgan, Chico Freeman and Will Downing. Mr. Pearson also served…

Five great musicians in one lovely band… Ray Loeckle, tenor sax Jerry Logas, bari sax, clarinet, flute and vocal Glen Deardorff, guitar Dean Reilly, bass Tony Johnson, drums In direct line of succession from Bird & Beckett’s earliest foray into weekly jazz parties! It all started in late 2002 when neighborhood jazz veteran Chuck Peterson enlisted friends and fellow musicians to play jazz in the bookshop every Friday after work.  Never a missed Friday since then! The musicians in the 230 Jones Street band, colleagues of Chuck from way back, carry the torch!  

          Come out for some fun with the City Jazz Ensemble, performing original compositions as well as beloved classics in celebration of a successful spring semester at CCSF! The band includes: Vocalists, Adina Pernell and Helen Palma Violins, David Wallace and Madeline Baker Trumpet, Freddy Lee Alto sax, Ferdinand Hartanto Tenor sax, German Murashov Bari sax and clarinet, Van Mares Piano, Megan Wegmann Bass, Elijah Pontecorvo Drums, Raul Menjivar

20 years down, now embarking on the next 20! Plenty more ahead, of course, through the end of the  month, including: — City  Jazz – CCSF Jazz Club’s big combo – coming in on Wednesday the 22nd to celebrate the end of the term with a blowout jam & party, 7pm — The 230 Jones Street band holding forth on Friday the 24th, 5:30pm — The Glen Pearson Quartet featuring the great saxophonist Robert Stewart on Saturday the 25th, 7:30pm — and three events on Sunday the 26th: • Walker Talks — on the Romantic era visionary poet William Blake — at 2:30pm • The Frank Tusa Trio with Akira Tana at 4:30pm • The Evangenitals — up from L.A. with a new cd — at 7:30pm — then, rounding out the month, five more events: • a gathering to remember poet, humanist and dearly missed friend of the shop…

Son of the shop Nicholas James Whittington reads his work, alongside Rod Roland and Micah Ballard in a celebration of their recent collections, No Right Words and Daily Vigs, respectively, the latest pamphlets from Bird & Beckett — a press, of which we are inordinately proud, that owes everything to our aforementioned progeny from the conception of its many offspring through their birthing into this temporal and concrete sphere. Micah Ballard is the author of Negative Capability in the Verse of John Wieners (Auguste Press, 2001; reissued by Bootstrap Press, 2017); three full-length collections of poetry: Afterlives (Bootstrap Press, 2016), Waifs and Strays (City Lights Books, 2011), and Parish Krewes (Bootstrap Press, 2009); and over a dozen small books, including most  recently, Daily Vigs (Bird & Beckett, 2019). With Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, he is co-publisher of Auguste Press and Lew Gallery Editions.   Rod Roland is a poet and  artist living in…

A classic piano quartet, led by the most remarkable pianist we know. And that’s saying a lot in a region boasting dozens of fantastic jazz pianists.  The volcanic creativity and technique of Grant Levin has been thrilling San Francisco jazz fans for the past decade and shows no signs of abating!  Lyle Link, saxophone Grant Levin, piano Aaron Cohn, bass Rick Rivera, drums $20 suggested; sliding scale available.  

$20 cover tonight; sliding scale available. The Jazz Philanthropists Union presents… Invisible Guy Ben Goldberg, clarinet Michael Coleman, piano Hamir Atwal, drums The return to Bird & Beckett of a sublimely intelligent and intuitive trio “in strict pursuit of beautiful melody.” Michael Coleman says: “Melody is the knife that cuts through to truth. Then there is the importance of breath, and personal expression.” Reviewing a 2014 concert, Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune said the group is “an unusually focused ensemble inventing a musical syntax for itself.” $20 cover charge. $10 for students / musicians / low income

Geechi Taylor, trumpet; David Boyce and James Mahone, reeds; Grant Levin, piano; Scott Foster, guitar; David Ewell, bass; Cairo McCockran, drums. Now, if that ain’t something… well, then, we just don’t know! But we think we know. That’s something! Happy anniversary to us! Bring dough for the musicians! Big dough if you’ve got it! $20 would be appropriate if  you’ve got it. More or less is ok. Remember, we have seven musicians on the bandstand who make their living this way, or at least as much of their living as is possible. But there’s no set cover… as has always been the case for our weekly Friday 5:30 shows, now in their 18th year, with never a missed Friday in all those years. We owe the neighborhood big time for helping us keep this going; we owe Chuck Peterson for getting it started; and we owe the musicians and poets…

Michael Boughn worked in the Teamsters for nearly 10 years before returning to university to earn a PhD in 1986 after studying with poets John Clarke and Robert Creeley. He is the author of ten books of poetry, including Iterations of the Diagonal, Dislocations in Crystal, 22 Skidoo / SubTractions, and Great Canadian Poems for the Aged Vol. 1 Illus. Ed. Cosmographia – a post-Lucretian faux micro-epic was short listed for the Canadian Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 2011, prompting a reviewer in the Globe and Mail to describe him as “an obscure veteran poet with a history of being overlooked.” With Victor Coleman he edited Robert Duncan’s The H.D. Book for the University of California Press. He has also published books for young adults, including the Maple Award nominated Into the World of the Dead,a mystery novel, Business As Usual, a descriptive bibliography of the American poet, H.D., and numerous essays on film, writing, architecture and music.…

Store closed today! You’re invited to join us to accept the City’s commendation!    

Joe Goldmark, pedal steel guitar Mitch Polzak, lead guitar and vocals Hank Maninger, bass guitar and vocals Kenny Owen, drums $10-20 suggested donation. Just the thing to cap off Mothers Day… the Seducers take Bird & Beckett down an entirely different highway, offering up classic, outlaw and honky tonk country music. It’s an all-star band led by pedal steel master Joe Goldmark, with Mitch Polzak, the heart-throb mayor of Port Costa on lead guitar and vocals, the wry and brilliant Hank Maninger on bass guitar and vocals, and Zen poet Kenny Owen on drums.