Ken Fowser – tenor sax Josh Bruneau – trumpet Peter Zak – piano Vince Dupont – bass James Gallagher – drums $15-25 cover charge; sliding scale. The quintet is traveling en masse from NYC, with stops at Cafe Stritch in San Jose, the North Coast Brewing Company in Fort Bragg, Bird & Beckett, and then four nights at the Black Cat before leaving on that jet plane and heading back east. Ken, Josh and Peter have all carved out substantial careers and reputations in New York and have each made memorable appearances at Bird & Beckett in the last year or two, while James Gallagher, a North Coast native and for years a mainstay of the San Francisco jazz scene, has played here many, many times — particularly before he moved to NYC last year. As for Vince, we’ll let his Smalls bio tell the tale: New Hampshire native Vincent…

Cal Calamia is a queer trans bilingual educator and poet living in San Francisco. Always busy, they are a marathon runner and a crowd surfer when they’re not writing or teaching. Their work is centered on on universalizing personal experiences, and is largely performative. Cal’s work can be heard on calcalamia.com and at readings across the Bay and beyond. Vincent Calvarese is native to the San Francisco Bay, writing in poetry, creative non-fiction and fiction every day. Born to a broken home in Contra Costa County, he found his wings amongst his heroes of Eureka Valley and for the last 30 years, his pen has been escorted by love, scorn and joy-induced tears. His poem “Mother, In Pieces” and his fictional character Jada in “The Artists Palette” are a few of the strong female voices in his published work. He continues to focus on San Francisco as his canvas. highlighted…

Improvising/avant garde saxophonist Yoni Kretzmer has relocated to the Bay Area for a spell from his base in Brooklyn. He’s joined by renowned San Francisco bassist Lisa Mezzacappa and his frequent collaborator in Brooklyn, the drummer Kjell Nordeson. Kretzmer has two new recordings out now from OutNow Recordings — “Mis-Stake” by his 2Bass Quartet and “Bring” by his trio with Daniel Sarid and Michael Evans. It’s free jazz, but there’s a cover in the Velvet Lounge! $20 (sliding scale available). Here’s a nice, rambling interview with Yoni from about a year ago that’ll give you a pretty good background going into tonight’s gig… https://www.jazzrightnow.com/interview-saxophonist-yoni-kretzmer/ And here’s a bit of audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0IH3DufrDQ           Before moving to NYC in 2010, Jerusalem born tenor saxophonist and composer Yoni Kretzmer was an active member in the growing Tel Aviv nu-music scene. Since relocating to Brookklyn, Kretzmer has led his own…

Ed Coletti will read from Apollo Blue’s Harp And The Gods Of Song, accompanied by Steve Shain on upright bass. North Bay poet David Beckman will also read several poems.  

Quartet: Patrick Wolff, tenor saxophone Richard Sears, piano Josh Thurston Milgrom, bass Hamir Atwal, drums Sextet: Patrick Wolff, tenor saxophone Matt Renzi, reeds Erik Jekabson, trumpet Richard Sears, piano Josh Thurston Milgrom, bass Hamir Atwal, drums   This evening will feature two distinct sets of original music and arrangements by Patrick Wolff. The first will focus on recent works, composed for a soon-to-be-released record with free jazz legend Louis Moholo-Moholo. These are loose compositions that live in the thematic and harmonic world of the South African expatriate jazz that Moholo-Moholo helped invent throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Wolff’s associations with pianist Richard Sears and drummer Hamir Atwal stretch past a decade; their own deep improvisational approaches make them ideal partners, and bassist Josh Thurston Milgrom’s fusing of melody and pulse will keep the heat on. In the second set, the band will add trumpeter Erik Jekabson and reedman Matt Renzi,…

$20 cover charge; sliding scale available. Gumbo on the house at the break! Mean to Me resurrects classic jazz of the 1920s through ’40s filtered through the unique sensibilities of the band, which boasts a proclivity for bop, soul and latin jazz as well. Think Monk sauntering up Tin Pan Alley and turning onto Bourbon Street… Sweet and low down, and always swingin’. Mingus is there… Ahmad Jamal, too… Mean to Me’s core comprises Judy Butterfield, trained as a cabaret singer but with an abiding love for soul music; Ben Slater, a pianist whose interest in exploring the roots of jazz grew from time spent living in New Orleans; and Dave Shaff, a trumpeter drawn to some more modern and funky sounds. All three grew up in San Francisco and have played together on and off for ten years now. They know how to have a good time, and so…

The Jazz Commissioner meets the New Jazz Commissioner at Bird & Beckett! John Calloway plays a mean flute, is an accomplished star in the Latin jazz world, is a highly regarded jazz educator and served on the San Francisco Arts Commission for many years.  Marcus Shelby is a superb & world renowned bassist, always has six projects on the burner at once and currently serves on the Arts Commission. They’re joined by veteran players Ken Cook on piano and Alan Hall on drums, both first-call players at the top of their profession, as well as the sublime vocalist, Angie Doctor! Ken came up in San Francisco, and subsequently studied in Boston at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory as well as in Havana at La ENA, and has about 40 years of professional experience, 13 of those since he returned to the Bay Area in 2006. Alan…

Celebrate the music, celebrate the Warriors! Music from 8pm to 10:45pm.  $15 cover; sliding scale available. Annette A. Aguilar is widely known for her Latin and Brazilian jazz band Annette A. Aguilar & StringBeans, which has toured extensively in the United States and Africa, and also as a former percussionist with The Grateful Dead. She is the founder of the annual Women in Latin Jazz Festival in New York, and is also a Latin Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department. Tonight, she brings a quartet with Chloe Scott on flute, Murray Low on piano and Greg Brown on bass.

Coming to the Bay Area for just a few days from her native Nashville, Crystal Miller will be joining The Craig & MacGregor Band in an exceptional performance not to be missed. She will move you with the music that moves her! $10 cover charge.  

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!