653 Chenery Street
in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood
1-415-586-3733
[email protected]
Open to walk-in trade and browsing
Tuesday to Sunday
noon to six
Live Streams every weekend!
Refresh your browser to catch a show in progress!
Visit our Facebook page or YouTube channel!
But nothing beats being in the room with the music & the musicians!
Robert Cherny taught American political history at San Francisco State University for decades, focusing on the Progressive Era and preceding periods. His book American Politics in the Gilded Age: 1868-1900 (Wiley-Blackwell, 1997) and other writings have informed the thought of generations of college students and academics with regard to the dimensions of a period depressingly foreshadowing our own in terms of a vast wealth and influence gap that also yielded major shifts in popular response and political innovation at state and local levels to over-weaning, monolithic economic power and arrogance. Along the way, however, his 30-year dive into the story of waterfront labor leader Harry Bridges in preparation of the major biography he brought out in early 2023 inevitably led him to consider the history that unfolded through the post-World War I years. While the Bridges book was in preparation, other material led to his publication of a book on…
Read More
thanks to your generous support, the good life goes on in San Francisco! Mark your calendar for Argentinian musician Gustavo Lorenzatti’s solo bass turn on Friday 1/24 (at 8:30pm), after the 230 Jones Street band plays from 6pm to 8pm. Also, surf jazzistas Jazz the Glass on Saturday 1/25 (7:30-9:30pm), and the monthly jam session on Sunday the 26th from 5-7pm. Italian poet Elena Pinnen reads from her collection, On the Breaking Wave Thursday 1/30 at 7pm. And we have a pair of birthday dates for Jon and Noah Frank on the last Friday of the month, January 31st. Drummer Jon Frank brings his trio (Jeremy Leber, piano, and Richard Saunders, bass) to celebrate his 70th birthday from 6-8pm with his son and daughter-in-law, trumpeter Noah Frank and singer Stephane Woodford, sitting in. Then from 8:30-10pm, Noah Frank celebrates his 35th birthday, bringing his quartet with Greg Jacobs, piano; Dexter…
Read More
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Angie Bennett & Sharon Wayne ~~facebook stars of their own minds~~ bring you a full hour of unalloyed dual ukulele & vocal magnificence! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sharon has worked for over thirty years as a solo performer, recording artist, chamber musician and music educator. A founding member of the San Francisco Guitar Quartet, she has also performed regularly around Boston and New York with the crossover group, Back Bay Guitar Trio. Been everywhere, done everything, and here she is with Angie, erstwhile co-founding CEO of the Bad Mommies, decorated soldier of the Ukulele Resistance Brigade, summa cum laude art historian, fierce proponent of fun prep for the post-apocalypse. Two ukes and intertwined voices that’ll have you beaming in unbecoming glee, somewhat terrified at your own capacity for joy. Passionate about new music, Sharon has premiered works by local and internationally recognized composers, including Carlo Domeniconi, Dušan Bogdanoviċ, Steve Mobia, Erik Pearson,…
Read More
Good news! In mid-September, we signed on with a fiscal sponsor–the 501(c)3 nonprofit Jazz in the Neighborhood–and are now offering tax-deductibility for your donations to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project (“BBCLP”). Write your check to Jazz in the Neighborhood and note “BBCLP deductible donation” in the memo line, then drop it off at the shop or mail it to us. We’ll forward it to Jazz in the Neighborhood. Cash is fine if you prefer. Or donate through Paypal, once or on a recurring basis. Bright moments ahead, thanks to you! The BBCLP makes it possible for Bird & Beckett to present live cultural events, paying a guaranteed fair wage to the musicians and at least a modest stipend to our featured poets, and also to pursue our publishing activities. Where it stands now: In 2024, Bird & Beckett celebrated a quarter century in business since our doors opened…
Read More
Bird & Beckett’s events open to the publichave been back since mid-June 2021.Mask up if you’re inclined, and do come in!(Not vaxxed? Please get vaxxed and be safer!) Jazz, poetry & morelive in the shopand live streamed Come to 653 Chenery if you’re in town! Doors open at 7:20 for our 7:30 shows.$20 cover for trios and quartets$25 for quintets, $30 for sextets, etc.Cash at the door please!BYOB and BYOglass, and pack out what you pack in! Please feel free to wear a mask in the shop.We trust the science and its processes,and we trust SF’s DPH to keep us up to date on best practices! Advised best practices as of early September 2021 was to wear a mask indoors around people. If that makes you a little more comfortable being inside this winter, then do feel free. Sure you’re vaccinated and even if you contract the virus it’s unlikely…
Read More
Hungry to hear some of Bird & Beckett’s past live streams? On the home page you can scroll down to read the individual posts for the shows we’ve mounted in the past several months, a hint of what’s gone down since the pandemic lock-down began. In more amazing times, it would take you right back to the very first show of the current period, back on March 12, 2020, but that beautiful skein is no longer quite so easily accessed. Still, the evidence is there for those who dig. The March 12, 2020 show that signaled the shift was a Thursday evening performance by New York saxophonists Jessica and Tony Jones, both alumni of the Berkeley High jazz program, with NYC bassist Stomu Takeishi and local hero Deszon X. Claiborne on drums. The quartet’s booking for the night before at the Backroom over in Berkeley had been cancelled. A few…
Read More
The posts that follow show you what’s come and gone. Search the videos on our youtube channel or facebook page to find evidence of what you remember, or what you missed! Then, make sure you catch the next thing that catches your fancy. The live streams are great, but live music in a room with folks you know or ought to get to know, that’s irreplaceable…
Read More
Three poets share new work, highlighting their latest published collections — Kathleen McClung with her 2024 book, Questions of Buoyancy; Jeanne Wagner with One Needful Song; and Barbara Crooker, with Slow Wreckage. No charge, but you may want to donate a few dollars to buy the poets a drink or gas to get home! And do buy a book to reward their efforts; one of the three is sure to work well as a gift to someone you love, or may find a sweet spot on your bookshelf at home. We’ll provide wine & bubbly water. Kathleen McClung is the author of five poetry collections including her latest, Questions of Buoyancy (Longship Press, 2024). Others include the 2020 Rattle Chapbook Prize winner A Juror Must Fold in on Herself, Temporary Kin, The Typists Play Monopoly and Almost the Rowboat. Winner of the Morton Marr, Maria W. Faust, and Rita Dove…
Read More
Kai Lyons, guitar. Peter Barshay, bass. Vince Lateano, drums. Come enjoy the long-running third Sunday residency of this trio–three colleagues spanning generations, savvy in the ways of jazz and delighted with the work. You’ll be delighted, too. Benji’s out this week, so Kai Lyons is in. You will be delighted. We guaranteed it. Relax and kick back in the shabby elegance of Glen Park’s best bookshop cum jazz club, bar none! BYOB and a twenty for the band.
Read More
Tim Armacost, saxophone. Dean Johnson, bass. Ron Vincent, drums. $20 cover charge; byob. Reservations always welcome; call 415-586-3733. Tim Armacost has established himself as one of the most important improvisers on the New York scene today, and he’s at Bird & Beckett tonight! Drummer Ron Vincent and bassist Dean Johnson, fresh and supercharged from a sequence of dates with the Bill Mays Trio, complete the trio. Tim is a Grammy-nominated saxophonist born in Los Angeles who came of age as a musician in Tokyo, New Delhi and Amsterdam, where he burnished his reputation as an upcoming talent with a big tenor sound and an impeccable rhythmic sense. He tours regularly around the world as both sideman and leader, and has worked with phenomenal jazz musicians including Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Kenny Barron, Tom Harrell, Billy Hart, Victor Lewis, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Peter Erskine, Ray Drummond, Roy Hargrove, Don Friedman and…
Read More
Skylar Tang, trumpet Hannah Mayer, piano Ruby Farmer, bass Sylvia Cuenca, drums $20 cover charge; byob Trumpeter Skylar Tang, Bay Area born and raised and now a rising star in New York, has been turning heads on the circuit here with her quartet for the last few weeks, a tour that she kicked off at Bird & Beckett as featured artist with veteran drummer Sylvia Cuenca’s stellar quartet on the eve of New Year’s Eve. This is your last chance to catch Skylar before she heads back to New York. Tonight, she’s in the company of two fine colleagues, pianist Hannah Mayer and bassist Ruby Farmer, with Sylvia on the drum throne. Read more at skylartang.com. Please join us tonight!
Read More
Threeology is: Tom Griesser, saxophone Scott Foster, guitar Ollie Dudek, bass Their book of music is full of tunes associated with Oscar Pettiford and Lucky Thompson as well as other material living in the cracks between swing and bebop. $20 suggested cover charge; byob. $10 for teens and students. Kids free.
Read More
Antonin Artaud, charismatic silent movie actor, visionary dramatic theorist and inspired prophet, was driven, by an increasingly troubled mind, in the years just prior to the second world war, to undertake a quixotic voyage to Mexico in search of an elemental connection to the life of the earth and the sky. Much of what actually happened there is unknown, but in the years that followed, including other voyages and descents in and out of madness, his experiences and imaginations became the source of a great many poetic documents, which are available to us, standing alone as priceless testimonies of a strange and gifted mind. Catch the live stream of the talk by Walker Brents on Bird & Beckett’s YouTube channel or Facebook page. If you’d like to come in person and take a seat to listen, send us an email at [email protected], and we’ll reserve a space for you. $10…
Read More
Isaiah Javier plays jazz saxophone. He’s on a west coast tour out of NYC with a sextet. Don’t miss it. Isaiah Javier – saxophone Joey Du Boi – trumpet Liam Rosenthal – guitar Max Levenson – piano Arlo Erwin – bass Sam Hicks – drums $25 cover charge; byob Isaiah came up in the Bay Area but is now in New York. Here, he was part of the SFJazz High School All-Stars jazz band that included Skylar Tang, who we heard at Bird & Beckett last week and will hear from again next week, also touring out of NYC. A lot of talented youth coming out of the Bay Area these days! Catch them whenever they pass back through Bird & Beckett or you’ll regret it later!
Read More
Nashville Honeymoon plays traditional country music, and pushes its boundaries. Two sets of true blue Americana this evening at Bird & Beckett! Hank Maninger’s lead guitar and Lynne Maes’ vocals are the right combination, riding a solid rhythm section with Tim Wagar on bass and Leor Beary on drums that can play a country shuffle every bit as well as a country rock anthem. Nashville Honeymoon offers up a rich wedding banquet of originals and classics in a lovely marriage of modern and timeless music. And with Joe Goldmark featured on pedal steel, there’s an added dimension to the joy and the heartache this music plumbs so well. It’s not your usual bar scene here, it’s true. That has its attributes, for sure, but country concerts at Bird & Beckett are always a pleasure — Americana music, loosely defined, is offered up at Bird & Beckett on the second Sunday…
Read More
Sign Up for Our Weekly Emails!
SUPPORT BIRD & BECKETT - DONATE TODAY!
Your donation to the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project helps us pay for a multitude of operating expenses necessary to present, promote and preserve local music, poetry, and more.
Help us keep the arts alive and thriving!
The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project was created in 2007 "to present, document and archive the creative work of significant living writers and musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, for a neighborhood audience and future generations." We've been doing that very thing for more than a decade and a half, continuing the work we began when the store was established in 1999.
We continue to present a full slate of programming of live music and poetry readings, and produce a literary journal and poetry chapbooks, and we seek and welcome your continued financial support by way of donations through our fiscal sponsor, Jazz in the Neighborhood.
Click on "donate" in the navigation bar above. Better yet, send or drop off a check made out to our fiscal sponsor, Jazz in the Neighborhood, with BBCLP in the memo line. Our mailing address is:
Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project
653 Chenery Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
Call us at (415) 586-3733 to find out how else you might lend your support.
TAKE OUR SURVEY
To take our SURVEY, click here, and help the BBCLP get to know you better! As Duke Ellington always said, we love you madly...
The Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project
Our events are put on under the umbrella of the Bird & Beckett Cultural Legacy Project (the "BBCLP"). That's how we fund our ambitious schedule of 300 or so concerts and literary events every year.
The BBCLP is a [Read More ]
The Independent Musicians Alliance
Gigging musicians! You have nothing to lose but your lack of a collective voice to achieve fair wages for your work!
The IMA can be a conduit for you, if you join in to make it work.
https://www.independentmusiciansalliance.org/
Read more here - Andy Gilbert's Feb 25 article about the IMA from KQED's site
