Bob Kenmotsu, tenor saxophone.
Keith Saunders, piano.
Tomoko Funaki, bass.
Tony Johnson, drums.

$20 cover charge, byob.
Students $10.  Kids free.
For a reservation, call the shop at 415-586-3733.

It’s been 65 years since Aussie Tony Johnson slipped into the country via Canada and took up residency in San Francisco. Tony immediately made his mark on the San Francisco jazz scene, recording a live album with vocalist Bev Kelly in 1959 alongside Pony Poindexter and Flip Nuñez at the Coffee Gallery on Grant Street, produced by Orrin Keepnews and engineered by Wally Heider, released on Riverside in 1960. Along the way, he’s gone on the road with Earl Hines, Peggy Lee and Swing Fever, and has consistently gigged all over town, without flagging. 

Tony was a long-time fixture in Smith Dobson’s quartet alongside Keith Saunders and Eric Markowitz at the Club Deluxe on Haight Street a couple doors from the corner of Ashbury before its recent demise. The Deluxe, dead in the water for several years, is set to be revived soon. Tony has never stopped swinging.

Tony’s quartet with Bob Kenmotsu on tenor sax, Keith Saunders on piano and Eric Markowitz on bass (Tomoko Funaki subs for Eric tonight) has been going strong at Bird & Beckett since late 2021. Born in Stockton and getting his B.A. in music at San Jose State, Bob headed for the Big Apple in the late 1970s. He toured for years back east with Ruth Brown when not busy with Brother Jack McDuff’s organ combo (hear him alongside guitarist Pat Martino on McDuff’s “Bronx Tale” released in 1994 in Europe on Belaphon and in Japan on Paddle Wheel). In 1997, he returned to the Bay Area, where he reunited with Keith, an L.A. native who ran the New York Hard Bop Quintet and who traveled in the same circles with him, once Keith made his own move to the Bay Area. Eric grew up in New Jersey and soaked up jazz in New York City then headed to St. Louis for college where he became a seasoned player before coming out to San Francisco in the early aughts, becoming one of the gigging-est bass players around.

Subbing for Eric tonight is Tomoko Funaki, whose Hard Bop Collective is one of the most solid & satisfying units in town. Tomoko, born and raised in Japan, played flute initially, attended college in New York, then came to San Francisco in 2002, taking up the bass, and the rest is history. 

The Tony Johnson Quartet has an ongoing residency at Bird & Beckett, appearing once a quarter on the fourth Friday of the month. Twice a quarter on the fourth Fridays, you can catch Tony with the 230 Jones Street Band (Charlie McCarthy on sax and flute, Sam Cady on piano and Chuck Bennett on bass). Each band has its unique repertoire, style and approach, and both are superb. Make the fourth Friday happy hour a habit, and you’ll never be sorry you did!

Bring something to sip and a twenty for the band. Broke? Pay less. Student? How about ten? It’s worth it to help these great musicians pay the bridge tolls, keep the parking meters from expiring on them, and meet their rent in this fabulously expensive city.