Pickpocket Ensemble

Pickpocket Ensemble at Bird & Beckett brings a Northern California group that has been playing what it calls contemporary chamber café music since 1998 — acoustic, instrumental, and shaped by Middle Eastern and Romani melody. Accordionist and pianist Rick Corrigan writes the material, and the ensemble has seven albums to its name, among them Schrödinger’s Teahouse and the live Friday Afternoon in the Universe; its music has turned up in films and on KQED’s Spark, and the group has toured the Netherlands and Germany and played Spain’s Etnosur festival. Corrigan is joined by Chloe Allen on violin, Yates Brown on guitar, banjo and sitar, John Slattery on percussion, and bassist Kurt Ribak, who appears on two of the records and plays his own trio date here the night before.