You can judge us by the company we keep in this wonderful city, rich in culture... just remember we're in Ohlone territory, it's the earth beneath our feet... and we're rubbing shoulders with the descendants of the first people of this peninsula all the time. At the same time, it's a city of immigrants... has been for a good couple of centuries. That shows no signs of abating...
Check out what's going on Saturday afternoon at the Louis Sutter Playground, where the Excelsior meets the Portola, when the Chispa Autumn Moon Celebration unfolds! Make and trade art! Enjoy the multilingual Moon-themed Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Spanish, English and Drag Queen Story Time. Hear El Guajiro & Cynthia Vasquez, Mr. Choy’s Trio, La Familia Peña-Govea, La Movida Marching Band, Anne Seeman’s Victrola and Tom Wood’s lunar soundscape. Southeast SF's rooted and flourishing artists have tons to offer! Kate Connell, x-CCSF librarian, and Oscar Melrta, x-SamTrans driver, are determined to feed the creative impulses of the City's long-time residents and new arrivals. Get their SE SF Cultural Map at Bird & Beckett!
-- Then, Saturday night, come to Bird & Beckett for Noel Jewkes with Grant Levin's quartet. Rick Rivera on the drums and Mr. C.T., Charles Thomas, on bass! Seriously good small combo jazz with a legendary sax player who arrived here from Utah in the 1960s and a piano player who's turned every head-with-ears in his vicinity since he blew into San Francisco in the early 2010s... $20 cover / sliding scale 7:30-10pm.
But don't wait 'til Saturday to get your deep-rooted local culture! Tonight, Thursday 9/12 is the last night for Terry Baum's play "Hick" at the Lilith Theater! Hick first emerged as a hit in its 2014 debut and scored big in the 2016 San Francisco Fringe Festival, and it's gotten raves throughout its many runs here and across the country, including in 2016 in Baltimore and in 2017 in Washington, D.C. -- where Eleanor Roosevelt and her long-time love Lorena Hickok formed a bond that lasted their lifetimes. Theater, art and culture are in Terry's blood and so is politics. She worked for Bella Abzug in 1970, founded Lilith here in San Francisco in 1974, created the comedy revue Dos Lesbos with Carolyn Myers in Oakland in 1981, ran for Nancy Pelosi's seat in Congress in 2004 (with a campaign stop at Bird & Beckett), spurred a huge anti-Trump postcard campaign in 2016. Terry and her lovely garden in the Eureka Valley are firmly rooted in San Francisco soil, making this a truly beautiful corner of the world. The show, Hick, is sold out online, but Lilith reserves 25% of the seats to go on a first come, first served basis a half hour before the 7pm curtain tonight. Get in line early
-- Find that despite arriving early at Lilith you can't get a ticket? Scoot over to Bird & Beckett, and we'll squeeze you in to hear a trombonist who's said to be the top swing player on the national and international circuit, Dan Barrett, with a young San Francisco vocalist, Jessica King, who's the darling of the swing scene here, along with local favorites Clint Baker on bass and Jeff Hamilton on piano. Fabulous music of the 1930s and 1940s, and a bit more! We suspect it'll be packed, but we'll squeeze you in if humanly possible. That's tonight, Thursday 9/12, 7-9pm, $20 cover/sliding scale.
-- But wait! You say it's Friday that's your night to play? Arrive early at Bird & Beckett, 5:30pm, to dig We Be Three. Dig that Hammond B3 organ sound that Jimmy Smith made so famous? Wayne De La Cruz makes it real! He's built a 3/4" plywood traveling case for his vintage B3 and hauls it with him to his plum gigs, like this one at Bird & Beckett, along with one of those giant Leslie speakers that makes the B3 sound so uniquely groovy! Raytar on geetar! Ray Scott plucks the strings; Jim Chantaloupe swings the rhythm on drums. BYOB to Bird & Beckett for our long-running after work jazz party, coming on eighteen years of nonstop jazz! No cover, but bring a double sawbuck for the musicians if you can swing it. Too rich for your blood? Then bring what you can! But don't let us catch you spending your dough at Le P'tit Laurent if you haven't lavished a full portion first on the flesh and blood musicians at Bird & Beckett that make San Francisco jazz culture the envy of the world!
The music ends at 8 here at Bird & Beckett on Friday! Does that still leave you with a head of steam and needing somewhere to blow it off? Scoot over the hill to the Club Deluxe at Haight & Ashbury to catch the tail end of Mitch Polzak's gig with the Royal Deuces, then stick for the 10 o'clock hit of Jay Sanders & Scott Larson's quintet. Trumpet and trombone plus rhythm hitting the hard bop heavy. It'll make you happy. The cover charge is probably just $5 or $10 and the drinks don't weigh in at $14 like they can in some of your swanky spots that wouldn't know true San Francisco culture if it bit 'em in the ass.
-- Sunday, you'd best just rent a paddle boat and meander around Stow Lake in the early part of the day, 'cause at 2pm we've got the rootsy raconteur Chuck Poling -- of Chuck & Jeannie's Country Roundup fame -- spinning the story of "Growing Up Bernal" and throwing in a few songs (with Jeannie's able assist). Nothing says San Francisco native like a Bernal Heights childhood! And at 4:30 we've got the very great and welcome 1970s-transplant-from-Boston Todd Swenson, just a superb and rockin' guitarist, leading his outfit called This Side Up, featuring vocalist Derek Evans, son of the South and soul vocalist extraordinaire! This is a double bill that shows the Americana side of San Francisco in it's richest glory.
What a town! It's a privilege to be part of it!
Click on any of the photos below for detail
And mark your calendar now for next week and weekend! Memoir writer and poet Sharon Doubiago and poet Lenore Weiss plus an open mic on Monday, September 16th... Scott Foster plus the Lost Trio playing Monk on Friday the 20th, Russian Telegraph (a quintet co-led by Beth Custer + David James) on Saturday the 21st, Slug Teacher -- a duo of Dave Tidball and Gaylen Grant playing jazz under the influence of Dylan Thomas on Sunday the 22nd at 2 pm -- and trombonist Rick Brown's quartet featuring Grant Levin at 4:30pm the same day.
Details on all of these shows can be found by scrolling down the home page of our website at www.birdbeckett.com..Glimpse the future by poking through our online calendar at this link.
