07/22/2026
Join us in celebrating Avotcja’s 85th birthday at Bird & Beckett Books on Saturday, July 25th at 7:30pm
Poet, Musicologist, Disc Jockey, Small Percussionist, Prose Writer in Many Genres, Avotcja is a Culture Hero!
Avotcja’s award-winning group Modúpue (Gratitude) is an ensemble that stretches to as many players as well fit a venue
Tonight, Modúpue is:
Avotcja, poetry and small multi-percussion.
Sandi Poindexter, violin.
Jon Jang, piano.
Francis Wong, saxophone and flute.
Heshima Mark Williams, bass.
Raul Ramirez, multi-percussion.
The cover charge for the sextet tonight is $25-35 sliding scale, cash or venmo, payable at the door / byob.
College and high school students – $10. Grade school and younger, free.
No one turned away for lack of funds. Wheelchair accessible.
Avotcja was named “Jazz Hero” by the West Coast Chapter of the Jazz Journalists Association in 2015 and was in the same year awarded the JaZzline Institute BAJABA Lifetime Achievement Award and the PEN Oakland Lifetime Achievement Award. She has also been the recipient of the PEN Oakland Adelle Foley Award in 2018, the San Francisco International Flor y Canto Festival Award in 2021, a San Jose State University Cultural Worker Award in 20213 and the Bajaba Griot Award in 2023.
Her radio shows on KPFA – Bebop, Cubop & the Musical Truth (Tuesdays, 8-10pm), and KPOO – La Verdad Musical (Fridays, noon-3pm), have been soul satisfying for decades, expressing the boundless joy she always finds in the music. As for her poetry, no one taps deeper wells of humanity than Avotcja!
Modúpue was named best jazz group of the year twice, in 2005 and again in 2010, by the Bay Area Blues Hall of Fame. Your Bird & Beckett proprietor has been a big fan from decades ago, when her radio shows got him through a lot of nights working late, and a chance to hear her expound on the Blues scene in the East Bay in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s up in Richmond one afternoon cinched the deal. She’s a cultural treasure.
We’ve been presenting Avotcja for many, many years on the first Sunday of each year, and several years ago we added a booking
